





LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


fU 


Chap. Copyright JSo. 


Shelf /f 


1 A<g — 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 












- 














































Alice’s 

Adventures in 
Wonderland ' 


CHICAGO 


W. B. CONKEY COMPANY 


wffig I 

f LEWIS CARROLL 1 

1 

snilL 

L - A ' J 




36150 


Library of Congress 

Two Copies Received 

AUG 18 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY. 

Delivered to 

OROtR DIVISION, 

SEP 8 1900 




Copyright, I960, by W. B. Conkey Company. 


74359 


CONTENTS. 


=3 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. Down the Rabbit-Hole n 

II. The Pool of Tears 21 

III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale 31 

IV. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill 40 

V. Advice from a Caterpillar 53 

VI. Pig and Pepper 66 

VII. A Mad Tea-Party 80 

VIII. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground 92 

IX. The Mock Turtle’s Story 106 

X. The Lobster-Quadrille 118 

XI Who Stole the Tarts? 129 

XII. Alice’s Evidence 139 


5 



All in the golden afternoon 
Full leisurely we glide ; 

For both our oars, with little skill, 

By little arms are plied, 

While little hands make vain pretence 
Our wanderings to guide. 

Ah, cruel Three ! In such an hour, 
Beneath such dreamy weather, 

To beg a tale of breath too weak 
To stir the tiniest feather! 

Yet what can one poor voice avail 
Against three tongues together? 

Imperious Prima flashes forth 
Her edict “to begin it”: 

In gentler tones Secunda hopes 
“There will be nonsense in it!” 

While Tertia interrupts the tale 
Not more than once a minute. 

Anon, to sudden silence won, 

In fancy they pursue 

The dream -child moving through a land 
Of wonders wild and new, 

In friendly chat with bird or beast — 
And half believe it true. 

7 


And ever, as the story drained 
The wells of fancy dry, 

And faintly strove that weary one 
To put the subject by, 

“The rest next time — ” “It is next time!” 
The happy voices cry. 

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: 

Thus slowly, one by one, 

Its quaint events were hammered out — 
And now the tale is done, 

And home we steer, a merry crew, 
Beneath the setting sun. 

Alice ! A childish story take, 

And, with a gentle hand 
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are 
twined 

In Memory’s mystic band, 

Like pilgrims’ wither’d wreath of flowers 
Pluck’d in a far-off land. 


8 


CHRISTM AS-GREETIN GS. 


[from a fairy to a child.] 

Lady dear, if Fairies may 
For a moment lay aside 

Cunning tricks and elfish play, 

’Tis at happy Christmas-tide. 

We have heard the children say — 
Gentle children, whom we love — 

Long ago, on Christmas Day, 

Came a message from above. 

Still, as Christmas-tide comes round, 
They remember it again — 

Echo still the joyful sound 
"Peace on earth, good-will to men!’ 

Yet the hearts must childlike be 
Where such heavenly guests abide ; 

Unto children, in their glee, 

All the year is Christmas-tide! 

Thus, forgetting tricks and play 
For a moment, Lady dear, 

We would wish you, if we may, 

Merry Christmas, glad New Year ! 

Christmas, 1867. 


9 






CHAPTER I. 


DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE. 

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sit- 
ting by her sister on the bank, and of having 
nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped 
into the book her sister was reading, but it 
had no pictures or conversations in it, “and 
what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, 
“without pictures or conversations?” 

So she was considering, in her own mind 
(as well as she could, for the hot day made her 
feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the 
11 


12 


ALICE S ADVENTURES 


pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be 
worth the trouble of getting up and picking 
the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit 
with pink eyes ran close by her. 

There was nothing so very remarkable in 
that; nor did Alice think it so very much out 
of the way to hear the Rabbit say to^jtself, 
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall be too date!’" 
(when she thought it over afterwards*' it oc- 
curred to her that she ought to have \\#4dered 
at this, but at the time it all seemed qti/te nat- 
ural) ; but, when the Rabbit actually (took a 
watch out of its waistcoat pocket, and. looked 
at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her 
feet, for it flashed across her mind that she 
had never before seen a rabbit with either a 
waistcoat pocket, or a watch to take out of it, 
and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the 
field after it, and was just in time to see it pop 
down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. 

In another moment down went Alice after 
it, never once considering how in the world 
she was to get out again. 

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tun- 
nel for some way, and then dipped suddenly 
down, so suddenly that Alice had not a mo- 
ment to think about stopping herself before 
she found herself falling down what seemed 
to be a very deep well. 

Either the well was very deep, or she fell 
very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she 
went down to look about her, and to wonder 
what was going to happen next. First, she 
tried to look down and make out what she was 


IN WONDERLAND. 


13 


coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; 
then she looked at the sides of the well, and 
noticed that they were filled with cupboards 
and book-shelves; here and there she saw 
maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took 
down a jar from one of the shelves as she 
passed; it was labeled “ORANGE MARMA- 
LADE,” but to her great disappointment it 
was empty; she did not like to drop the jar, 
for fear of killing some body underneath, so 
managed to put it into one of the cupboards 
as she fell past it. 

“Well!” thought Alice to herself. “After 
such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of 
tumbling downstairs! How brave they’ll all 
think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say any- 
thing about it, even if I fell off the top of the 
house!” (Which was very likely true.) 

Down, down, down. Would the fall never 
come to an end? “I wonder how many miles 
I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I 
must be getting somewhere near the center of 
the earth. Let me see: that would be four 
thousand miles down, I think — ” (for, you see, 
Alice had learned several things of this sort in 
her lessons in the school -room, and though this 
was not a very good opportunity for showing 
off her knowledge, as there was no one to lis- 
ten to her, still it was good practice to say it 
over) “ — yes, that’s about the right distance — 
but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude 
I’ve got to?” (Alice had not the slightest 
idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, 


14 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


but she thought they were nice grand words 
to say.) 

Presently she began again. “I wonder if I 
shall fall right through the earth ! How funny 
it’ll seem to come out among the people that 
walk with their heads downwards! The an- 
tipathies, I think” — (she was rather glad there 
was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t 
sound at all the right word) ‘‘but I shall have 
to ask them what the name of the country is, 
you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zea- 
land? or Australia?” (and she tried to curtsey 
as she spoke — fancy, curtseying as you’re fall- 
ing through the air ! Do you think you could 
manage it?) ‘‘And what an ignorant little girl 
she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do 
to ask ; perhaps I shall see it written up some- 
where. ” 

Down, down, down. There was nothing 
else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. 
‘‘Dinah ’ll miss me very much to-night, I 
should think!” (Dinah was the cat.) ‘‘I hope 
they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea- 
time. Dinah, my dear! I wish you were down 
here with me ! There are no mice in the air, 
I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and 
that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do 
cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here Alice be- 
gan to get rather sleepy, and went on saying 
to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, “Do cats 
eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, 
“Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t 
answer either question, it didn’t much matter 
which way she put it. She felt that she was 


IN WONDERLAND. 


15 


dozing off, and had just begun to dream that 
she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and 
was saying to her, very earnestly, “Now, 
Dinah, tell me the truth : did you ever eat a 
bat?” when suddenly, thump! thump! down 
she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, 
and the fall was over. 

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up 
on to her feet in a moment; she looked up, 
but it was all dark overhead ; before her was 
another long passage, and the White Rabbit 
was still in sight, hurrying down it. There 
was not a moment to be lost : away went Alice 
like the wind, and was just in time to hear it 
say, as it turned a corner, “Oh, my ears and 
whiskers, how late it’s getting!’’ She was 
close behind it when she turned the corner, 
but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen ; she 
found herself in a long, low hall, which was 
lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the 
roof. 

There were doors all round the hall, but 
they were all locked; and when Alice had been 
all the way down one side and up the other, 
trying every door, she walked sadly down the 
middle, wondering how she was ever to get 
out again. 

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged 
table, all made of solid glass; there was noth- 
ing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice’s 
first idea was that this might belong to one of 
the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the 
locks were too large, or the key was too small, 
but at any rate it would not open any of them. 


16 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


However, on the second time round, she came 
upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, 
and behind it was a little door about fifteen 
inches high : she tried the little golden key in 
the lock, and to her great delight it fitted ! 



Alice opened the door and found that it led 
into a small passage, not much larger than a 
rat-hole : she knelt down and looked along the 
passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. 
How she longed to get out of that dark hall, 
and wander about among those beds of bright 
flowers and those cool fountains, but she could 
not even get her head through the doorway ; 
“and even if my head would go through,” 
thought poor Alice, “it would be of very little 
use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I 


IN WONDERLAND. 


17 


could shut up like a telescope! I think I 
could, if I only knew how to begin. ” For, 
you see, so many out-of-the-way things had 
happened lately, that Alice had begun to think 
that very few things indeed were really impos- 
sible. 



There seemed to be no use in waiting by 
the little door, so she went back to the table, 
half-hoping she might find another key on it, 
or, at any rate, a book of rules for shutting 
people up like telescopes ; this time she found 
a little bottle on it (“which certainly was not 
here before,” said Alice), and tied round the 

2 Alice’s Adventure 


18 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the 
words “DRINK ME” beautifully printed on 
it in large letters. 

It was all very well to say ‘ ‘ Drink me, ’ ’ but 
the wise little Alice was not going to do that 
in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, 
“and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not;” 
for she had read several nice little stories about 
children who had got burnt, and eaten up by 
the wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, 
all because they would not remember the sim- 
ple rules their friends had taught them ; such 
as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you 
hold it too long ; and that, if you cut your fin- 
ger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds ; 
and she had never forgotten that, if you drink 
much from a bottle marked “poison,” it is al- 
most certain to disagree with you, sooner or 
later. 

However, this bottle was not marked “poi- 
son, ’ ’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and, finding 
it very nice (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed 
flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast 
turkey, taffy, and hot buttered toast), she very 
soon finished it off. 

* * * * 

* * * 

* * * # 

“What a curious feeling!” said Alice. “I 

must be shutting up like a telescope!” 

And so it was, indeed; she was now only 
ten inches high, and her face brightened up at 
the thought that she was now the right size for 


IN WONDERLAND. 


19 


going through the little door into that lovely 
garden. First, however, she waited for a few 
minutes to see if she was going to shrink any 
further; she felt a little nervous about this; 
“for it might end, you know,” said Alice to 
herself, “in my going out altogether, like a 
candle. I wonder what I should be like, then?” 
And she tried to fancy what the flame of a 
candle looks like after the candle is blown out, 
for she could not remember ever having seen 
such a thing. 

After a while, finding that nothing more 
happened, she decided on going into the gar- 
den at once; but, alas for poor Alice! wheni 
she got to the door, she found she had forgot- 
ten the little golden key, and when she went 
back to the table for it, she found she could 
not possibly reach it; she could see it quite 
plainly through the glass, and she tried her 
best to climb up one of the legs of the table,, 
but it was too slippery; and when she had 
tired herself out with trying, the poor little 
thing sat down and cried. 

“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” 
said Alice to herself rather sharply. “I advise 
you to leave off this minute!” She generally 
gave herself very good advice (though she 
very seldom followed it) , and sometimes she 
scolded herself so severely as to bring tears 
into her eyes ; and once she remembered try- 
ing to box her own ears for having cheated 
herself in a game of croquet she was playing 
against herself, for this curious child was very 
fond of pretending to be two people. “But 


20 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pre- 
tend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly 
enough of me left to make one respectable 
person!” 

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box 
that was lying under the table: she opened 
it, and found in it a very small cake, on 
which the words “EAT ME” were beautifully 
marked in currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said 
Alice, ‘‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can 
reach the key; and if it makes me grow 
smaller, I can creep under the door : so either 
way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care 
which happens!” 

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to 
herself ‘‘Which way? Which way?” holding 
her hand on the top of her head to feel which 
way it was growing; and she was quite sur- 
prised to find that she remained the same size. 
To be sure, this is what generally happens 
when one eats cake ; but Alice had got so much 
into the way of expecting nothing but out-of- 
the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite 
dull and stupid for life to go on in the common 
way. 

So she set to work, and very soon finished 
off the cake. 

****** 

***** 

****** 


IN WONDERLAND. 


21 


CHAPTER II. 

THE POOL OF TEARS. 



“Curiouser and curi- 
ouser!” cried Alice (she 
was so much surprised, 
that for the moment she 
quite forgot how to 
speak good English). 
“Now I’m opening out 
like the largest tele- 
scope that ever was ! 
Good-bye, feet!” (for 
when she looked down 
at her feet, they seemed 
to be almost out of 
sight, they were getting 
so far off). “Oh, my 
poor little feet, I won- 
der who will put on 
your shoes and stock- 
ings for you now, dears? 
I’m sure I shan’t be 
able ! I shall be a great 
deal too far off to 
trouble myself about 
you : you must manage 
the best way you can — 
but I must be kind to 


22 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


them,” thought Alice, ‘‘or perhaps they won’t 
walk the way I want to go ! Let me see. I’ll 
give them a new pair of boots every Christ- 
mas. ” 

And she went on planning to herself how 
she would manage it. ‘‘They must go by the 
carrier,” she thought; ‘‘and how funny it’ll 
seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! 
And how odd the directions will look ! 

i Alice’s Right Foot, Esq. 

Hearthrug, 

near the Fender, 

(with Alice’s love). 

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!” 

Just at this moment her head struck against 
the roof of the hall : in fact she was now rather 
more than nine feet high, and she at once took 
up the little golden key and hurried off to the 
garden door. 

Poor Alice ! It was as much as she could do, 
lying down on one side, to look through into 
the garden with one eye ; but to get through 
was more hopeless than ever: she sat down 
and began to cry again. 

‘‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said 
Alice, ‘‘a great girl like you,” (she might well 
say this), ‘‘to go on crying in this way! Stop 
this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all 
the same, shedding gallons of tears, until 
there was a large pool all around her, about 
four inches deep, and reaching half down the 
hall. 

After a time she heard a little pattering of 


IN WONDERLAND. 


23 



feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her 
eyes to see what was coming. It was the 
White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, 
with a pair of white kid-gloves in one hand and 
a large fan in the other: he came trotting 
along in a great hurry, muttering to himself, 
as he came, “Oh! The Duchess, the Duchess! 


24 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


Oh! Won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her 
waiting!” Alice felt so desperate that she was 
ready to ask help of any one: so, when the 
Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, 
timid voice, ‘‘If you please, Sir — ” The 
Rabbit started violently, dropped the white 
kid-gloves and the fan, and skurried away into 
the darkness as hard as he could go. 

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the 
hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all 
the time she went on talking. ‘‘Dear, dear! 
How queer everything is to-day! And yester- 
day things went on just as usual. I wonder if 
I’ve been changed in the night? Let me 
think : was I the same when I got up this morn- 
ing? I almost think I can remember feeling a 
little different. But if I’m not the same the 
next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, 
that’s the great puzzle!” And she began 
thinking over all the children she knew 
that were of the same age as herself, to see if 
she could have been changed for any of them. 

‘‘I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, ‘‘for her 
hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine 
doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I 
can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, 
and she, oh, she knows such a very little! 
Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and — oh dear, 
how puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all 
the things I used to know. Let me see: four 
times five is twelve, and four times six is thir- 
teen, and four times seven is — oh dear! I shall 
never get to twenty at that rate! However, 
the Multiplication-Table doesn’t signify: let’s 


IN WONDERLAND. 


25 


try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, 
and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome — 
no, that’s all wrong, I’m certain! I must have 
been changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say 
‘How doth the little — and she crossed her 
hands on her lap, as if she were saying lessons, 
and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded 
hoarse and strange, and the words did not 
come the same as they used to do : — 

“How doth the little crocodile 
Improve his shining tail, 

And pour the waters of the Nile 
On every golden scale ! 

“How cheerfully he seems to grin, 

How neatly spreads his claws, 

And welcomes little fishes in, 

With gently smiling jaws!” 

“I’m sure those are not the right words, ” 
said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears 
again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after 
all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky 
little house, and have next to no toys to play 
with, and oh, ever so many lessons to learn! 
No, I’ve made up my mind about it: if I’m 
Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use 
their putting their heads down and saying 
‘Come up again, dear!’ I shall only look up 
and say ‘Who am I, then? Tell me that first, 
and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come 
up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m some- 


26 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


body else’ — but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a 
sudden burst of tears, “I do wish they would 
put their heads down! I’m so very tired of 
being all alone here!” 

As she said this she looked down at her 
hands, and was surprised to see that she had 
put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid- 
gloves while she was talking. “How can I 
have done that?” she thought. “I must be 
growing small again.” She got up and went 
to the table to. measure herself by it, and found 
that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now 
about two feet high, and was going on shrink- 
ing rapidly : she soon found out that the cause 
of this was the fan she was holding, ana she 
dropped it hastily, just in time to save herself 
from shrinking away altogether. 

“That was a narrow escape!” said Alice, a 
good deal frightened at the sudden change, 
but very glad to find herself still in existence. 

4 ‘ And now for the garden ! ’ ’ And she ran with 
all her speed back to the little door ; but, alas ! 
the little door was shut again, and the little 
golden key was lying on the glass table as 
before, “and things are worse than ever,” 
thought the poor child, “for I never was so 
small as this before, never ! And I declare it s 
too bad, that it is!” 

As she said these words her foot slipped, and 
in another moment, splash ! she was up to her 
chin in salt-water. Her first idea was that she 
had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that 
case I can go back by railway, ’ ’ she said to her- 
self. (Alice had been to the seaside once in 


IN WONDERLAND. 


27 


her life, and had come to the general conclu- 
sion that, wherever you go to on the English 
•coast, you find a number of bathing-machines 
in the sea, some children digging in the sand 
with wooden spades, then a row of lodging- 
houses, and behind them a railway-station.) 
However, she soon made out that she was in 
the pool of tears which she had wept when she 
was nine feet high. 

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, 
as she swam about, trying to find her way out. 
“I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by 
being drowned in my own tears! That will 
he a queer thing, to be sure ! However, every- 
thing is queer to-day. ” 

Just then she heard something splashing 
about in the pool a little way off, and she swam 
nearer to make out what it was: at first she 
thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, 
hut then she remembered how small she was 
now, and she soon made out that it was only a 
mouse, that had slipped in like herself. 

“Would it be of any use, now,” thought 
Alice, “to speak to this mouse? Everything is 
so out-of-the-way down here, that I should 
think very likely it can talk: at any rate, 
there’s no harm in trying.” So she began: 
“O Mouse, do you know the way out of this 
pool? I am very tired of swimming about 
here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be 
the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had 
never done such a thing before, but she 
remembered having seen, in her brother’s 
Latin Grammar, “A mouse — of a mouse — to a 


28 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


mouse— a mouse — O mouse!” The mouse 
looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed 
to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it 
said nothing. 

‘‘Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” 
thought Alice. ‘‘I daresay it’s a French 
mouse, come over with William the Con- 
queror.” (For, with all her knowledge of his- 
tory, Alice had no very clear notion how long 
ago anything had happened.) So she began 
again: ‘‘Ou est ma chattel” which was the 
first sentence in her French lesson-book. The 
Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, 
and seemed to quiver all over with fright. 
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, 
afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feel- 
ings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.” 

“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse in a shrill, 
passionate voice. “Would you like cats, if you 
were me?” 

“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing 
tone: “don’t be angry about it. And yet I 
wish I could show you our cat Dinah. I think 
you’d take a fancy to cats, if you could only 
see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,” 
Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam 
lazily about in the pool, “and she sits purring 
so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and 
washing her face — and she is such a nice soft 
thing to nurse — and she’s such a capital one 
for catching mice — oh, I beg your pardon ! ” 
cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was 
bristling all over, and she felt certain it must 


IN WONDERLAND. 


29 


be really offended. “We won’t talk about her 
any more, if you’d rather not.’’ 

“We, indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was 
trembling down to the end of it tail. “As if I 
would talk on such a subject! Our family 
always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! 
Don’t let me hear the name again!” 

“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great 
hurry to change the subject of conversation. 



“Are you — are you fond — of — of dogs?” The 
Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eag- 
erly: “There is such a nice little dog, near 

our house, I should like to show you ! A little 
bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such 
long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things 
when you throw them, and it’ll set up and beg 
for its dinner, and all sorts of things — I can’t 
remember half of them — and it belongs to a 
farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, 


30 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills 
all the rats and — oh dear!” cried Alice in a 
sorrowful tone. “I’m afraid I’ve offended it 
again!” For the Mouse was swimming away 
from her as hard as it could go, and making 
quite a commotion in the pool as it went. 

So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! 
Do come back again, and we won’t talk about 
cats, or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” 
When the Mouse heard this, it turned round 
and swam slowly back to her : its face was quite 
pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said, 
in a low trembling voice, “Let us get to the 
shore, and then I’ll tell you my history, and 
you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and 
dogs. ’ ’ 

It was high time to go, for the pool was get- 
ting quite crowded with the birds and animals 
that had fallen into it: there was a Duck and 
a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several, 
other curious creatures. Alice led the way,, 
and the whole party swam to the shore. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


31 



CHAPTER III. 

A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE. 

They were indeed a queer-looking party that 
assembled on the bank — the birds with 
draggled feathers, the animals with their fur 
clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, 
cross, and uncomfortable. 

The first question of course was, how to get 
dry again : they had a consultation about this, 
and after a few minutes it seemed quite nat- 
ural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly 
with them, as if she had known them all her 
life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument 
with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and 
would only say “I’m older than you, and must 


32 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


know better.” And this Alice would not 
allow, without knowing how old it was, and, 
as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, 
there was no more to be said. 

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a per- 
son of some authority among them, called out 
“Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I’ll 
soon make you dry enough!” They all sat 
down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse 
in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously 
fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a 
bad cold if she did not get dry very soon. 

“Ahem!” said the Mouse with an important 
air. “Are you all ready? This is the driest 
thing I know. Silence all round, if you please ! 
‘William the Conqueror, whose cause was fav- 
ored by the pope, was soon submitted to by the 
English, who wanted leaders, and had been of 
late much accustomed to usurpation and con- 
quest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia 

and Northumbria ’ ” 

“Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver. 

“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, 
frowning, but very politely. “Did you speak?” 
“Not I!” said the Lory, hastily. 

“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “I 
proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, the earls of 
Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; 
and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of 
Canterbury, found it advisable — ’ ” 

“Found what?” said the Duck. 

“Found it,” the Mouse replied rather 
crossly; “of course, you know what ‘it’ 
means.” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


33 

“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when 
I find a thing," said the Duck; "it’s generally 
a frog, or a worm. The question is, what 
did the archbishop find?" 

The Mouse did not notice this question, but 
hurriedly went on, " ‘ — found it advisable to 
go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and 
offer him the crown. William’s conduct at 
first was moderate. But the insolence of his 
Normans — ’ How are you getting on now, 
my dear?" it continued, turning to Alice as it 
spoke. 

"As wet as ever," said Alice in a melan- 
choly tone; "it doesn’t seem to dry me at all." 

"In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, ris- 
ing to its feet, "I move that the meeting ad- 
journ, for the immediate adoption of more 
energetic remedies — ’’ 

"Speak English!" said the Eaglet. "I don’t 
know the meaning of half those long words, 
and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do 
either!" And the Eaglet bent down its head 
to hide a smile; some of the other birds tit- 
tered audibly. 

"What I was going to say," said the Dodo 
in an offended tone, "was, that the best thing 
to get us dry would be a Caucus-race. ’ ’ 

"What is a Caucus-race?" said Alice; not 
that she much wanted to know, but the Dodo 
had paused as if it thought that somebody 
ought to speak, and no one else seemed in- 
clined to say anything. 

"Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to 
explain it is to do it." (And, as you might 

3 Alice’s Adventure 


34 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


like to try the thing yourself, some winter- 
day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed 
it.) 

First, it marked out a race-course, in a sort 
of circle (“the exact shape doesn’t matter,” it 
said,) and then all the party were placed along 
the course, here and there. There was no 
“One, two, three, and away!” but they began 
running when they liked, and left off when 
they liked, so that it was not easy to know 
when the race was over. However, when they 
had been running half an hour or so, and were 
quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out 
“The race is over!” and they all crowded 
round it, panting, and asking, “But who has 
won?” 

This question the Dodo could not answer 
without a great deal of thought, and it stood 
for a long time with one finger pressed upon 
its forehead (the position in which you usually 
see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while 
the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo 
said, “Everybody has won, and all must have 
prizes!” 

“But who is to give the prizes?” quite a 
chorus of voices asked. 

“Why, she, of course,” said the Dodo, point- 
ing to Alice with one finger ; and the whole 
party at once crowded round her, calling out,- 
in a confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!” * 

Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair 
she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out 
a box of comfits (luckily the salt water had 
not got into it), and handed them round as 


IN WONDERLAND. 


35 


prizes. There was exactly one apiece, all 
around. 

“But she must have a prize herself, you 
know,” said the Mouse. 



“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. 
“What else have you got in your pocket?” it 
went on, turning to Alice. 




36 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly. 

“Hand it over here,” said the Dodo. 

Then they all crowded round her once more, 
while the Dodo solemnly presented the thim- 
ble, saying, “We beg your acceptance of this 
elegant thimble;” and, when it had finished 
this short speech, they all cheered. 

Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, 
but they all looked so grave that she did not 
dare to laugh ; and, as she could not think of 
anything to say, she simply bowed, and 
took the thimble, looking as solemn as she 
could. 

The next thing was to eat the comfits; this 
caused some noise and confusion, as the large 
birds complained that they could not taste 
theirs, and the small ones choked and had to 
,be patted on the back. However, it was over 
at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and 
begged the Mouse to tell them something 
more. 

“You promised to tell me your history, you 
know,” said Alice, “and why it is you hate — 
C and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid 
that it would be offended again. 

“Mine is a long and a sad tale !” said the 
Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. 

“It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, 
looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; 
“but why do you call it sad?” And she kept 
on puzzling about it while the Mouse was 


IN WONDERLAND. 


37 


speaking, so that her idea of the tale was some- 
thing like this: — “Fury said to 
a mouse, That 
he met in the 

house, ‘Let 
us both go 
to law: I 
will prose- 
cute you . — 

Come, I’ll 
take no de- 
nial: We 
must have 
the trial; 

For really 
this morn- 
ing I’ve 
nothing 
to do. ’ 

Said the 
mouse to 
the cur. 

‘Such a 
trial, dear, 
sir. With 


no jury 
or judge, 
would 
be wast- 
ing our 
breath.* 

‘I’ll be 


judge, 
I’ll be 

jury,’ 

said 


cun- 
ning 
o 1 d 
Fnry: 
T1 1 


try 
the 
whole 
oaUHe, 
a nd 
con- 



38 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to 
Alice, severely. “What are you thinking of?” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very hum- 
bly; “you had got to the fifth bend, I think?” 

“I had not!” cried the Mouse, sharply and 
very angrily. 

“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make 
herself useful, and looking anxiously about 
her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it!” 

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the 
Mouse, getting up and walking away. “You 
insult me by talking such nonsense!” 

“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. 
“But you’re so easily offended, you know!” 

The Mouse only growled in reply. 

“Please come back, and finish your story!” 
Alice called after it. And the others all joined 
in chorus, “Yes, please do!” But the Mouse 
only shook its head impatiently, and walked a 
little quicker. 

“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the 
Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight. 
And an old Crab took the opportunity of say- 
ing to her daughter, “Ah, my dear! Let this 
be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!” 
“Hold your tongue, Ma!” said the young Crab, 
a little snappishly. “You’re enough to try 
the patience of an oyster!” 

“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” 
said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in partic- 
ular. “She’d soon fetch it back!” 

“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to 
ask the question?” said the Lory. 

Alice replied eagerly, for she was always 


IN WONDERLAND. 


39 


ready to talk about her pet; “Dinah’s our cat. 
And she’s such a capital one for catching mice, 
you can’t think! And, oh, I wish you could 
see her after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a lit- 
tle bird as soon as look at it!’’ 

This speech caused a remarkable sensation 
among the party. Some of the birds hurried 
off at once; one old Magpie began wrapping 
itself up very carefully, remarking, “I really 
must be getting home; the night-air doesn’t 
suit my throat!’’ And a Canary called out in 
a trembling voice, to its children, “Come 
away, my dears! It’s high time you were all 
in bed!’’ On various pretexts they all moved 
off, and Alice was soon left alone. 

“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!’’ she 
said to herself in a melancholy tone. “No- 
body seems to like her, down here, and I’m 
sure she’s the best cat in the world! Oh, my 
dear Dinah ! I wonder if I shall ever see you 
any more!’’ And here poor Alice began to 
cry again, for she felt very lonely and low- 
spirited. In a little while, however, she again 
heard a little pattering of footsteps in the dis- 
tance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping 
that the Mouse had changed his mind, and 
was coming back to finish his story. 


40 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL. 

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back 
again, and looking anxiously about as it went, 
as if it had lost something; and she heard it 
muttering to itself, “The Duchess! The 
L>uchess! Oh, my dear paws! O, my fur 
and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure 
as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have 
dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a 
moment that it was looking for the fan and 
the pair of white kid-gloves, and she very 
good-naturedly began hunting about for them, 
but they were nowhere to be seen — everything 
seemed to have changed since her swim in the 
pool ; and the great hall, with the glass table 
and the little door, had vanished completely. 

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she 
went hunting about, and called out to her, in 
an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what are 
you doing out here? Run home this moment, 
and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! 
Quick, now!” And Alice was so much fright- 
ened that she ran off at once in the direction 
it pointed to, without trying to explain the 
mistake that it had made. 

“He took me for his housemaid,” she said 
to herself as she ran. “How surprised he’ll 


IN WONDERLAND. 


41 


be when he finds out who I am! But I’d bet- 
ter take him his fan and gloves — that is, if I 
can find them.” As she said this, she came 
upon a neat little house, on the door of which 
was a bright brass plate with the name “W. 
RABBIT” engraved upon it. She went in 
without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in 
great fear lest she should meet the real Mary 
Ann, and be turned out of the house before 
she had found the fan and gloves. 

“How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, 
“to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose 
Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!” 
And she began fancying the sort of thing that 
would happen: “ ‘Miss Alice! Come here 
directly, and get ready for your walk!’ ‘Com- 
ing in a minute, nurse! But I’ve got to watch 
this mouse-hole till Dinah comes back, and 
see that the mouse doesn’t get out. ’ Only I 
don’t think,” Alice went on, “that they’d let 
Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering 
people about like that!” 

By this time she had found her waj T into a 
tidy little room with a table in the window, 
and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or 
three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves; she took 
up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and 
was just going to leave the room, when 
her eye fell upon a little bottle that 
stood near the looking-glass. There was 
no label this time with the words “DRINK 
ME,” but, nevertheless, she uncorked 
it and put it to her lips. “I know 
something interesting is sure to happen,” she 


42 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


said to herself, “whenever I eat or drink any- 
thing; so I’ll just see what this bottle does. I 
do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for 
really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny lit- 
tle thing!’’ 

It did so, indeed, and much sooner than she 
had expected; before she had drunk half the 
bottle, she found her head pressing against 
the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck 



from being broken. She hastily put down the 
bottle, saying to herself, “That’s quite enough 
— I hope I shan’t grow any more — as it is, I 
can’t get out at the door — I do wish I hadn’t 
drunk quite so much!’’ 

Alas! It was too late to wish that! She 
went on growing, and growing, and very soon 
had to kneel down on the floor; in another 


IN WONDERLAND. 


43 


minute there was not even room for this, and 
she tried the effect of lying down with one el- 
bow against the door, and the other arm curled 
round her head. Still she went on growing, 
and, as a last resource, she put one arm out cf 
the window, and one foot up the chimney, and 
said to herself, “Now I can do no more, what- 
ever happens. What will become of me?” 

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had 
now had its full effect, and she grew no larger ; 
still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there 
seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever get- 
ting out of the room again, no wonder she felt 
unhappy. 

“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought 
poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing 
larger and smaller, and being ordered about 
by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t 
gone down that rabbit-hole — and yet — and yet 
— it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of 
life ! I do wonder what can have happened to 
me! When I used to read fairy tales, I fan- 
cied that kind of thing never happened, and 
now here I am in the middle of one! There 
ought to be a book written about me, that 
there ought! And when I grow up, I’ll write 
one — but I’m grown up now,” she added in a 
sorrowful tone; “at least there’s no room to 
grow up any more here.” 

“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I never 
get any older than I am now? That’ll be a 
comfort, one way — never to be an old woman 
— but then — always to have lessons to learn ! 
Oh, I shouldn’t like that!” 


44 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Oh, you foolish Alice!” she answered her- 
self. “How can you learn lessons in here? 
Why, there’s hardly room for you, and no room 
at all for any lesson-books!” 

And so she went on, taking first one-side and 
then the other, and making quite a conversa- 
tion of it altogether; but after a few minutes 
she heard a voice outside, and stopped to 
listen. 

“Mhry Ann! Mary Ann!” said the voice. 
“Fetch me my gloves this moment !” Then, 
came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. 
Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look 
for her, and she trembled till she shook the 
house, quite forgetting that she was now 
about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, 
and had no reason to be afraid of it. 

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, 
and tried to open it; but, as the door opened 
inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard 
against it, that attempt proved a failure. 
Alice heard it say to itself, “Then I’ll go round 
and get in at the window.” 

“That you won’t!” thought Alice, and, 
after waiting till she fancied she heard the 
Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly 
spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the 
air. She did not get hold of anything, but she 
heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of 
broken glass, from which she concluded that 
it was just possible it had fallen into a cucum- 
ber-frame, or something of the sort. 

Next came an angry voice — the Rabbit’s — 
“Pat! Pat! Where are you?” And then a voice 


IN WONDERLAND. 


45 


she had never heard before. “Sure then I'm 
here! Digging for apples, yer honor!” 

“Digging for apples, indeed!” said the Rab- 
bit angrily. “Here! Come and help me out 
of this!” (Sounds of more broken glass.) 



“Now, tell me, Pat, what’s that in the win- 
dow?” 

“Sure, it’s an arm, yer honor !” (He pro- 
nounced it “arrum. ”) 

“An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one 
that size? Why, it fills the whole window!” 

“Sure, it does, yer honor; but it’s an arm 
for all that. ’ ’ 


46 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Well, it’s got no business there, at any 
rate; go and take it away!” 

There was a long silence ^after this, and 
Alice could only hear whispers'now and then ; 
such as “Sure, I don’t like it, yer honor, at all, 
at all!” “Do as I tell you, you coward!” and 
at last she spread out her hand again, and 
made another snatch in the air. This time 
there were two little shrieks, and more sounds 
of broken glass. “What a number of cucum- 
ber frames there must be!” thought Alice. “I 
wonder what they’ll do next! As for pulling 
me out of the window, I only wish they could ! 
I’m sure I don’t want to stay in here any 
longer!” 

She waited for some time without hearing 
anything more: at last came a rumbling of 
little cart-wheels, and the sound of a good 
many voices all talking together ; she made out 
the words: “Where’s the other ladder? — Why, 
I hadn’t to bring but one. Bill’s got the other 
— Bill! Fetch it here, lad: — Here, put ’em up 
at this corner — No, tie ’em together first — they 
don’t reach half high enough yet — Oh, they’ll 
do well enough. Don’t be particular — here, 
Bill! Catch hold of this rope — Will the roof 
bear? — Mind that loose slate — Oh, it’s coming 
down! Heads below!” (a loud crash) — “Now, 
who did that? — It was Bill, I fancy — Who’s to 
go down the chimney? — Nay, I shan’t! You 
doit! — That I won’t, then! — Bill’s got to go 
down — Here, Bill! The master says you’ve 
got to go down the chimney!” 

“Oh ! So Bill’s got to come down the chim- 


IN WONDERLAND. 


47 


ney, has he?" said Alice 
to herself. ‘‘Why, they 
seem to put everything 
upon Bill! I wouldn’t 
be in Bill’s place for 
a good deal; this fire- 
place is narrow, to be 
sure; but I think I can 
kick a little!" 

She drew her foot as 
far down the chimney 
as she could, and waited 
till she heard a little 
animal (she couldn’t 
guess of what sort it 
was) scratching and 
scrambling about in the 
chimney close above 
her ; then, saying to her- 
self, ‘‘This is Bill,” she 
gave one sharp kick, 
and waited to see what 
would happen next. 

The first thing she 
heard was a general 
chorus of ‘‘There goes 
Bill!” then the Rab- 
bit’s voice alone — 
‘‘Catch him, you by the 
hedge!" then silence, and then another con- 
fusion of voices — ‘‘Hold up his head — Brandy 
now — Don’t choke him — How was it, old fel- 
low? What happened to you? Tell us all 
about it!" 



•48 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice 
(“That’s Bill,” thought Alice), “Well, I hardly 
know — No more, thank ye; I’m better now — 
but I’m a deal too flustered to tell you — all 
I know is, something comes at me like a Jack- 
in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!” 

“So you did, old fellow!” said the others. 

“We must burn the house down !” said the 
Rabbit’s voice. And Alice called out, as loud 
as she could, “If you do, I ’ 11 set Dinah at you ! ’ ’ 

There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice 
thought to herself, “I wonder what they will 
do next! If they had any sense, they’d take 
the roof off.” After a minute or two, they 
began moving about again, and Alice heard 
the Rabbit say, “A barrowful will do, to begin 
with. ” 

“A barrowful of what?” thought Alice. But 
she had not long to doubt, for the next moment 
a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at 
the window, and some of them hit her in the 
face. “I’ll put a stop to this,” she said to 
herself, and shouted out, “You better not do 
that again!” which produced another dead 
silence. 

Alice noticed, with some surprise, that the 
pebbles were all turning into little cakes as 
»*■ they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came 
into her head. “If I eat one of these cakes,” 
she thought, “it’s sure to make some change 
in my size; and, as it can’t possibly make me 
larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose. ’ ’ 

So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was 
delighted to find that she began shrinking di-* 


IN WONDERLAND. 


49 


rectly. As soon as she was small enough to 
get through the door, she ran out of the house, 
and found quite a crowd of little animals and 
birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, 
Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two 
guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out 
of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the 
moment she appeared ; but she ran off as hard 
as she could, and soon found herself safe in a 
thick wood. 

“The first thing I’ve got to do,” said Alice 
to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, 
“is to grow to my right size again; and the 
second thing is to find my way into that lovely 
garden. I think that will be the best plan. ” 

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and 
very neatly and simply arranged; the only 
difficulty was, that she had not the smallest 
idea how to set about it ; and, while she was 
peering about anxiously among the trees, a lit- 
tle sharp bark just over her head made her 
look up in a great hurry. 

An enormous puppy was looking down at 
her with large round eyes, and feebly stretch- 
ing out one paw, trying to touch her. “Poor 
little thing!” said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and 
she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was 
terribly frightened all the time at the thought 
that it might be hungry, in which case it 
would be very likely to eat her up in spite of 
all her coaxing. 

Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up 
a little bit of stick, and held it out to the 
puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the 

4 Alice’s Adventure 


50 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 



air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of de- 
light, and rushed at the stick, and made be- 
lieve to worry it ; then Alice dodged behind a 
great thistle, to keep herself from being run 
over; and, the moment she appeared on the 
other side, the puppy made another rush at 
the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its 



IN WONDERLAND. 


51 


hurry to get hold of it ; then Alice, thinking it 
was very like having a game of play with a 
cart-horse, and expecting every moment to be 
trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle 
again ; then the puppy began a series of short 
charges at the stick, running a very little way 
forwards each time and a long way back, and 
barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat 
down a good way off, panting, with its tongue 
hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes 
half shut. 

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for 
making her escape; so she set off at once, and 
ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, 
and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint: 
in the distance. 

“And yet what a dear little puppy it was!’” 
said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup to 
rest herself, and fanned herself with one off 
the leaves. “I should have liked teaching it 
tricks very much, if — if I’d only been the right 
size to do it! Oh, dear! I’d nearly forgotten 
that I’ve got to grow up again! Let me see 
— how is it to be managed? I suppose I ought 
to eat or drink something or other; but the 
great question is, ‘What’?’’ 

The great question certainly was “What?’ ” 
Alice looked all around her at the flowers and 
the blades of grass, but she could not see any- 
thing that looked like the right thing to eat or 
drink under the circumstances. There was a 
large mushroom growing near her, about the 
same height as herself; and, when she had 
looked under it, and on both sides of it, and 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


52 

behind it, it occurred to her that she might as 
well look and see what was on the top of it. 

She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and 
peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and 
her eyes immediately met those of a large blue 
caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, with its 
arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, 
and taking not the smallest notice of her or of 
anything else. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


53 



CHAPTER V. 

ADVICE FROM A CATERPILLAR. 

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each 
other for some time in silence; at last the Cat- 
erpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and 
addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. 



ALICE'S ADVENTURES 


M 

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar. 

This was not an encouraging opening for a 
conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I 
— I hardly know, Sir, just at present — at least 
I knew who I was when I got up this morn- 
ing, but I think I must have been changed 
several times since then. ’ ’ 

“What do you mean by that?” said the Cat- 
erpillar, sternly. “ Explain yourself. ” 

“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” 
said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you 
see. ’ ’ 

“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. 

“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” 
Alice replied, very politely, “for I can’t un- 
derstand it myself, to begin with ; and being 
so many different sizes in a day is very con- 
fusing. ” 

“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. 

“ Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet, ” 
said Alice; “but when you have to turn into a 
•chrysalis — you will some day, you know — and 
fthem after that into a butterfly, I should think 
youTl feel it a little queer, won’t you?” 

‘‘"Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. 

“Well, perhaps your feelings may be differ- 
ent,” said Alice: “all I know is, it would feel 
very queer to me. ’ ’ 

“You!” said the Caterpillar, contemptu- 
ously. “Who are you?” 

Which brought them back again to the begin- 
ning of the conversation. Alice felt a little 
irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very 
short remarks, and she drew herself up and 


IN WONDERLAND. 


55 


said, very gravely, “I think you ought to tell 
me who you are, first. ’ ’ 

“Why?" said the Caterpillar. 

Here was another puzzling question; and, 
as Alice could not think of any good reason, 
and the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very un- 
pleasant state of mind, she turned away. 

“Come back!" the Caterpillar called after 
her. “I’ve something important to say!" 

This sounded promising, certainly. Alice 
turned and came back again. 

“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. 

“Is that all?” said Alice, swallowing down 
her anger as well as she could. 

“No," said the Caterpillar. 

Alice thought she might as well wait, as she 
had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all 
it might tell her something worth hearing. 
For some minutes it puffed away without speak- 
ing; but at last it unfolded its arms, took the 
hookah out of its mouth again, and said, “So 
you think you’ve changed, do you?" 

“I’m afraid I am, Sir, ’’said Alice. “I can't 
remember things as I used — and I don’t keep 
the same size for ten minutes together!” 

“Can't remember what things?" said the 
Caterpillar. 

“Well, I’ve tried to say ‘How doth the little 
busy bee,’ but it all came different!" Alice 
replied in a very melancholy voice. 

“Repeat ‘You are old, Father William,’ 
said the Caterpillar. 

Alice folded her hands, and began : — 



“You are old, Father William/’ the young 
man said, 

“And your hair has become very white; 

And yet you incessantly stand on your head — 
Do you think, at your age, it is right?’’ 


“In my youth,’’ Father William replied to his 
son, 

“I feared it might injure the brain; 

But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, 
Why, I do it again and again.’’ 


IN WONDERLAND. 


57 



“You are old,” said the youth, “as I men- 
tioned before, 

And have grown most uncommonly fat ; 

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the 
door — 

Pray, what is the reason of that?” 


“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his 
gray locks, 

“I kept all my limbs very supple 
By the use of this ointment — one shilling the 
box 

Allow me to sell you a couple?” 



“You are old/’ said the youth, “and your jaws 
are too weak 

For anything tougher than suet; 

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and 
the beak — 

Pray, how did you manage to do it?” 


“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the 
law, 

And argued each case with my wife ; 

And the muscular strength, which it gave to 
my jaw 

Has lasted the rest of my life.” 



IN WONDERLAND. 


59 



“You are old,” said the youth, “one would 
hardly suppose 

That your eye was as steady as ever; 

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your 
nose — 

What made you so awfully clever?'’ 


“I have answered three questions, and that is 
enough,” 

Said his father. “Don’t give yourself 
airs! 

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? 
Be off, or I’ll kick you down-stairs!” 


60 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


‘ ‘ That is not said right, ’ ’ said the Caterpillar. 

“Not quite right, I’m afraid,” said Alice, 
timidly : 4 4 some of the words have got altered. ’ * 

“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said 
the Caterpillar, decidedly; and there was 
silence for some minutes. 

The Caterpillar was the first to speak. 

“What size do you want to be?” it asked. 

“Oh, I’m not particular as to size,” Alice 
hastily replied ; “only one doesn’t like chang- 
ing so often, you know. ’ ’ 

“I don’t know,” said the Caterpillar. 

Alice said nothing; she had never been so 
much contradicted in all her life before, and 
she felt that she was losing her temper. 

“Are you content now?” said the Caterpillar. 

“Well, I should like to be a little larger, 
Sir, if you wouldn’t mind,” said Alice: “three 
inches is such a wretched height to be. ” 

“It is a very good height indeed!” said the 
Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it 
spoke (it was exactly three inches high). 

“But I’m not used to it!” pleaded poor Alice 
in a piteous tone. And she thought to her- 
self, “I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so 
easily offended!” 

“You’ll get used to it in time,” said the 
Caterpillar; and it put the hookah into its 
mouth, and began smoking again. 

This time Alice waited patiently until it 
chose to speak again. In a minute or two the 
Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, 
and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. 
Then it got down off the mushroom, and 


IN WONDERLAND. 


61 


crawled away into the grass, merely remarking, 
as it went, “One side will make you grow 
taller, and the other side will make you grow 
shorter.” 

“One side of what? The other side of 
what?” thought Alice to herself. 

“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, 
just as if she had asked it aloud ; and in another 
moment it was out of sight. 

Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the 
mushroom for a minute, trying to make out 
which were the two sides of it; and, as it was 
perfectly round, she found this a very difficult 
question. However, at last she stretched her 
arms round it as far as they would go, and 
broke off a bit of the edge with each hand. 

“And now which is which?” she said to her- 
self, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit 
to try the effect. The next moment she felt 
a violent blow underneath her chin: it had 
struck her foot ! 

She was a good deal frightened by this very 
sudden change, but she felt that there was no 
time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly: 
so she set to work at once to eat some of the 
other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely 
against her foot, that there was hardly room 
to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and 
managed to swallow a morsel of the left-hand 
bit. 

* * * * * * 
***** 
****** 

“Come, my head’s free at last!” said Alice 


62 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm 
in another moment, when she found that her 
shoulders were nowhere to be found : all she 
could see, when she looked down, was an im- 
mense length of neck, which seemed to rise 
like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that 
lay far below her. 

“What can all that green stuff be?” said 
Alice. “And where have my shoulders got 
to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t 
see you?’’ She was moving them about, as 
she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, 
except a little shaking among the distant green 
leaves. 

As there seemed to be no chance of getting 
her hands up to her head, she tried to get her 
head down to them, and was delighted to find 
that her neck would bend about easily in any 
direction, like a serpent. She had just suc- 
ceeded in curving it down into a graceful zig- 
zag, and was going to dive in among the 
leaves, which she found to be nothing but the 
tops of the trees under which she had been 
wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw 
back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown 
into her face, and was beating her violently 
with its wings. 

“Serpent!” screamed the Pigeon. 

“I’m not a serpent!” said Alice indignantly. 
“Let me alone!” 

“Serpent, I say again!” repeated the Pigeon, 
but in a more subdued tone, and added, with 
a kind of sob, “I’ve tried every way, but noth- 


IN WONDERLAND. 


63 


“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talk- 
ing- about, * ’ said Alice. 

“I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried 
banks, and I’ve tried hedges,” the Pigeon 
went on, without attending to her; “but those 
serpents! There’s no pleasing them!” 

Alice was more and more puzzled, but she 
thought there was no use in saying anything 
more till the Pigeon had finished. 

“As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching 
the eggs,” said the Pigeon; “but I must be 
on the look-out for serpents, night and day! 
Why, I haven’t had a wink of sleep these three 
weeks!” 

“I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,” said 
Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning. 

“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the 
wood,” continued the Pigeon, raising its 
voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking 
I should be free of them at last, they must 
needs come wriggling down from the sky! 
Ugh, Serpent!” 

“But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!” said 
Alice. “I’m a I’m a ” 

“Well! What are you?” said the Pigeon. “I 
can see you’re trying to invent something!” 

“I — I’m a little girl,” said Alice, rather 
doubtfully, as she remembered the number of 
changes she had gone through, that day. 

“A likely story indeed!” said the Pigeon, in 
a tone of the deepest contempt. “I’ve seen a 
good many little girls in my time, but never 
one with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re 
a serpent; and there’s no use denying it. I 


64 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


suppose you’ll be telling me next that you 
never tasted an egg!” 

“I have tasted eggs, certainly,” said Alice, 
who was a very truthful child; “but little 
girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, 
you know. ’ ’ 

“I don’t believe it,” said the Pigeon; “but 
if they do, why, then they’re a kind of serpent ; 
that’s all I can say.” 

This was such a new idea to Alice, that she 
was quite silent for a minute or two, which 
gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding 
“You’re looking for eggs, I know that well 
enough; and what does it matter to me 
whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?” 

“It matters a good deal to me,” said Alice 
hastily; “but I’m not looking for eggs, as it 
happens; and, if I was, I shouldn’t want 
yours: I don’t like them raw.” 

“Well, be off, then!” said the Pigeon in a 
sulky tone, as it settled down again into its 
nest. Alice crouched down among the trees 
as well as she could, for her neck kept getting 
entangled among the branches, and every now 
and then she had to stop and untwist it. After 
a while she remembered that she still held 
the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she 
set to work very carefully, nibbling first at 
one and then at the other, and growing some- 
times taller, and sometimes shorter, until she 
had succeeded in bringing herself down to her 
usual height. 

It was so long since she had been anything 
near the right size, that it felt quite strange 


IN WONDERLAND. 


65 


at first; but she got used to it in a few min- 
utes, and began talking to herself, as usual, 
4 ‘Come, there’s half my plan done now! How 
puzzling all these changes are! I’m never 
sure what I’m going to be, from one minute 
to another! However, I’ve got back to my 
right size : the next thing is, to get into that 
beautiful garden — how is that to be done, I 
wonder?” As she said this, she came sud- 
denly upon an open place, with a little house 
in it about four feet high. ‘‘Whoever lives 
there,” thought Alice, ‘‘it’ll never do to come 
upon them this size: why, I should frighten 
them out of their wits!” So she began nib- 
bling at the right-hand bit again, and did not 
venture to go near the house till she had 
brought herself down to nine inches high. 


5 Alice’s Adventure 


66 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


CHAPTER VI. 

PIG AND PEPPER. 

For a minute or two she stood looking at 
the house, and wondering what to do next, 
when suddenly a footman in livery came run- 
ning out of the wood — (she considered him to 
be a footman because he was in livery: other- ^ 
wise, judging by his face only, she would have 
called him a fish) — and rapped loudly at the 
door with his knuckles. It was opened by 
another footman in livery, with a round face, 
and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, 
Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled 
all over their heads. She felt very curious to 
know what it was all about, and crept a little 
way out of the wood to listen. 

The Fish- Footman began by producing from 
under his arm a great letter, nearly as large 
as himself, and this he handed over to the 
other, saying, in a solemn tone, ‘‘For the 
Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to 
play croquet.” The Frog-Footman repeated, 
in the same solemn tone, only changing the_ 
order of the words a little, “From the Queen. » 
An invitation for the Duchess to play cro- 
quet.” 

Then they both bowed low, and their curls 
got entangled together. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


61 



Alice laughed so much at this, that she had 
to run back into the wood for fear of their 
hearing her; and, when she next peeped out, I 
the Fish- Footman was gone, and the other 
was sitting on the ground near the door, star- 
ing stupidly up into the sky. 

Alice went timidly up to the door, and 
knocked. 



68 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“There’s no sort of use in knocking - ,’’ said the 
Footman, “and that for two reasons. First, 
because I’m on the same side of the door as 
you are: secondly, because they’re making 
such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear 
you.” And certainly there was a most extra- 
ordinary noise going on within — a constant 
howling and sneezing, and every now and then 
a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been 
broken to pieces. 

“Please, then,’’ said Alice, “how am I to 
get in?’’ 

“There might be some sense in your knock- 
ing,’’ the Footman went on, without attending 
to her, “if we had the door between us. For 
instance, if you were inside, you might knock, 
and I could let you out, you know.’’ He was 
looking up into the sky all the time he was 
speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly 
uncivil. “But perhaps he can’t help it,’’ she 
said to herself ; “his eyes are so very nearly 
at the top of his head. But at any rate he 
might answer questions. — How am I to get 
in?’’ she repeated, aloud. 

“I shall sit here,’’ the Footman remarked, 
“till to-morrow ’’ 

At this moment the door of the house opened, 
and a large plate came skimming out, straight 
at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, 
and broke to pieces against one of the trees 
behind him. 

“ or next day, maybe,’’ the Footman 

continued in the same tone, exactly as if noth- 
ing had happened. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


69 


“How am I to get in?” asked Alice again, 
in a louder tone. 

“Are 3^ou to get in at all?” said the Foot- 
man. “That’s the first question, you know.” 

It was, no doubt : only Alice did not like to 
be told so. “It’s really dreadful, ” she mut- 
tered to herself, “the way all the creatures 
argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!” 

The Footman seemed to think this a good 
opportunity for repeating his remark, with 
variations. “I shall sit here,” he said, “on 
and off, for days and days/A- 

“But what am I to do?” said Alice. 

“Anything you like,” said the Footman, and 
began whistling. 

“Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,” 
said Alice desperately: “he’s perfectly idi- 
otic!” And she opened the door and went in. 

The door led right into a large kitchen, 
which was full of smoke from one end to the 
other: the Duchess was sitting on a three- 
legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby: 
the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a 
large cauldron which seemed to be full of 
soup. 

“There’s certainly too much pepper in that 
soup!” Alice said to herself, as well as she 
could for sneezing. 

There was certainly too much of it in the 
air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; 
and as for the baby, it was sneezing and 
howling alternately without a moment’s pause. 
The only two creatures in the kitchen, that did 
not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat, 


70 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 



which was lying on the hearth and grinning 
from ear to ear. 

“Please would you tell me,” said Alice, a 
little timidly, for she was not quite sure 
whether it was good manners for her to speak 
first, “why your cat grins like that?” 

“It’s a Cheshire-Cat,” said the Duchess, 
“and that’s why. Pig!” 

She said the last word with such sudden 
violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw 
in another moment that it was addressed to the 
baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and 
went on again : — 

“I didn’t know that Cheshire-Cats always 
grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could 
grin.” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


71 


“They all can,” said the Duchess; “and 
most of ’em do.” 

“I don’t know of any that do,” Alice said 
very politely, feeling quite pleased to have 
got into a conversation. 

“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; 
“and that’s a fact. ” 

Alice did not at all like the tone of this 
remark, and thought it would be as well to 
introduce some other subject of conversation. 
While she was trying to fix on one, the cook 
took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at 
once set to work throwing everything within 
her reach at the Duchess and the baby — the 
fire-irons came first; then followed a shower 
of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duch- 
ess took no notice of them even when they hit 
her; and the baby was howling so much 
already, that it was quite impossible to say 
whether the blows hurt it or not. 

“Oh, please mind what you’re doing!” cried 
Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of 
terror. “Oh, there goes his precious nose!” 
as an unusually large saucepan flew close by 
it, and very nearly carried it off. / 

“If everybody minded their own business.” 
the Duchess said, in a hoarse growl, “the 
world would go round a deal faster than it 
does ” 

“Which would not be an advantage,” said 
Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportu- 
nity of showing off a little of her knowledge. 
“Just think what work it would make with the 
day and night! You see the earth takes 


72 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


twenty-four hours to turn round on its 
axis ” 

“Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop 
off her head !” 

Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, 
to see if she meant to take the hint; but the 
cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed 
not to be listening, so she went on again: 
“Twenty-four hours, I think; or is it twelve? 

“Oh, don’t bother me!” said the Duchess. 
“I never could abide figures!” And with that 
she began nursing her child again, singing a 
sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving 
it a violent shake at the end of every line: — 

4 4 Speak roughly to your little boy, 

And beat him when he sneezes: 

He only does it to annoy, 

Because he knows it teases.” 

Chorus. 

(in which the cook and the baby joined) : — 
“Wow! wow! wow!” 

While the Duchess sang the second verse of 
the song, she kept tossing the baby violently 
up and down, and the poor little thing howled 
so, that Alice could hardly hear the words: — 

“I speak severely to my boy, 

I beat him when he sneezes; 

For he can thoroughly enjoy 
The pepper when he pleases!” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


73 


Chorus. 

“Wow! wow! wow!” 

“Here! You may nurse it a bit, if you 
like!” the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the 
baby at her as she spoke. “I must go and get 
ready to play croquet with the Queen,” and 
she hurried out of the room. The cook threw 
a frying-pan after her as she went, but it just 
missed her. 

Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, 
as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and 
held out its arms and legs in all directions, 
“just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The 
poor little thing was snorting like a steam- 
engine when she caught it, and kept doubling 
itself up and straightening itself out again, so 
that altogether, for the first minute or two, it 
was as much as she could do to hold it. 

As soon as she had made out the proper way 
of nursing it (which was to twist it up into a 
sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its 
right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its 
undoing itself), she carried it out into the 
open air. “If I don’t take this child away 
with me,” thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill 
it in a day or two. Wouldn’t it be murder to 
leave it behind?” She said the last words out 
loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it 
had left off sneezing by this time). “Don’t 
grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper 
way of expressing yourself.” 

The baby grunted again, and Alice looked 
very anxiously into its face to see what was 


74 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


the matter with it. There could be no doubt 
that it had a very turn-up nose, much more 
like a snout than a real nose: also its eyes 
were getting extremely small for a baby: 
altogether Alice did not like the look of the 
thing at all. “But perhaps it was only sob- 
bing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes 
again, to see if there were any tears. 



No, there were no tears. “If you’re going 
to turn into a pig, my dear,” said Alice, seri- 
ously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. 
Mind now!” The poor little thing sobbed 


IN WONDERLAND. 


75 


again (or grunted, it was impossible to say 
which), and they went on for some while in 
silence. 

Alice was just beginning to think of herself, 
4 ‘Now, what am I to do with this creature, 
when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so 
violently, that she looked down into its face 
in some alarm. This time there could be no 
mistake about it: it was neither more nor less 
than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite 
absurd for her to carry it any further. 

So she set the little creature down, and felt 
quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into 
the wood. ‘‘If it had grown up,” she said to 
herself, ‘‘it would have made a dreadfully 
ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome 
pig, I think.” And she began thinking over 
other children she knew, who might do very 
well as pigs, and was just saying to herself ‘‘if 
one only knew the right way to change 

them ” when she was a little startled by 

seeing the Cheshire-Cat sitting on a bough of 
a tree a few yards off. 

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It 
looked good-natured, she thought: still it had 
very long claws and a great many teeth, so 
she felt that it ought to be treated with 
respect. 

“Cheshire-Puss,” she began, rather timidly, 
as she did not at all know whether it would 
like the name: however, it only grinned a 
little wider. ‘‘Come, it’s pleased so far,” 
thought Alice, and she went on. “Would you 


76 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


tell me, please, which way I ought to go from 
here?” 

“That depends a good deal on where you 
want to get to,” said the Cat. 

“I don’t much care where ” said Alice. 

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you 
go,” said the Cat. 

“ so long as I get somewhere,” Alice 

added as an explanation. 

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, 
“if you only walk long enough. ” 

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so 
she tried another question. “What sort of 
people live about here?” 

“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving 
its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in 
that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives 
a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re 
both mad. ’ ’ 

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” 
Alice remarked. 

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: 
“we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re 
mad. ” 

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. 

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you 
wouldn’t have come here.” 

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all: how- 
ever, she went on: “And how do you know 
that you’re mad?” 

“To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not 
mad. You grant that?” 

“I suppose so,” said Alice. 

“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see 


IN WONDERLAND. 


77 



a dog growls when it’s 
angry, and wags its tail 
when it’s pleased. Now 
I growl when I’m 
pleased, and wag my 
tail when I’m angry. 
Therefore I’m mad.” 

“I call it purring, not 
growling, ” said Alice. 

“Call it what you 
like,” said the Cat. “Do 
you play croquet with 
the Queen to-day?” 

“I should like it very 
much,” said Alice, 
“but I haven’t been in- 
vited yet. ” 

“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and 
vanished. 

Alice was not much surprised at this, she 



78 


ALICE'S ADVENTURES 


was getting so well used to queer things hap- 
pening. While she was still looking at the 
place where it had been, it suddenly appeared 
again. 

“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” 
said the Cat. “I'd nearly forgotten to ask.” 

“It turned into a pig,” Alice answered very 
quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in 
a natural way. 

“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and 
vanished again. / 

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it 
again, but it did not appear, and after a minute 
or two she walked on in the direction in which 
the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen 



hatters before,” she said to herself: “the 
March Hare will be much the most interesting, 
and perhaps, as this is May, it won’t be rav- 
ing mad — at least not so mad as it was in 



IN WONDERLAND. 


79 


March.” As she said this, she looked up, and 
there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch 
of a tree. 

‘‘Did you say ‘pig’, or ‘fig’?” said the Cat. 

‘‘I said ‘pig’,” replied Alice; ‘‘and I wish 
you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing' 
so suddenly: you make one quite giddy!” 

‘‘All right,” said the Cat; and this time it 
vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end 
of the tail, and ending with the grin, which 
remained some time after the rest of it had 
gone. 

‘‘Well ! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin, ’ r 
thought Alice; ‘‘but a grin without a cat! 
It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all 
my life!” 

She had not gone much farther before she 
came in sight of the house of the March Hare: 
she thought it must be the right house, because 
the chimneys were shaped like ears and the 
roof was thatched with fur. It was so large 
a house, that she did not like to go nearer till 
she had nibbled some more of the left-hand bit 
of mushroom, and raised herself to about two 
feet high: even then she walked up towards 
it rather timidly, saying to herself, ‘‘Suppose 
it should be raving mad after all! I almost 
wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!” 


80 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


CHAPTER VII. 

A MAD TEA-PARTY. 

There was a table set out under a tree in 
front of the house, and the March Hare and 
the Hatter were having tea at it; a Dormouse 
was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the 
other two were using it as a cushion, resting 
their elbows on it, and talking over its head. 
“Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” 
thought Alice; “only as it’s asleep, I suppose 
it doesn’t mind. ” 

The table was a large one, but the three 
were all crowded together at one corner of it. 
“No room! No room!” they cried out when 
they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of 
room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat 
down in a large arm-chair at one end of the 
table. 

“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in 
an encouraging tone. 

Alice looked all round the table, but there 
was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any 
wine,” she remarked. 

“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. 

“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” 
said Alice angrily. 

“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down with- 
out being invited,” said the March Hare. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


81 


“I didn’t know it was your table,” said 
Alice; ‘‘it’s laid for a great many more than 
three. ” 

“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. 
He had been looking at Alice for some time 
with great curiosity, and this was his first 
speech. 

“You should learn not to make personal re- 
marks,” Alice said with some severity; “it’s 
very rude.” 



The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on 
hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a 
raven like a writing-desk?” 

“Come, we shall have some fun now!’' 
thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun ask- 
ing riddles — I believe I can guess that,” she 
added aloud. 

6 Alice’s Adventure 


82 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Do you mean that you think you can find 
out the answer to it?” said the March Hare. 

“Exactly so,” said Alice. 

“Then you should say what you mean,” the 
March Hare went on. 

“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least — at 
least I mean what I say — that’s the same thing, 
you know.” 

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. 
“Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see 
what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what 
I see’!” 

“You might just as well say,” added the 
March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the 
same thing as 4 1 get what I like’ !” 

“You might just as well say,” added the 
Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its 
sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the 
same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!” 

“It is the same thing with you, ” said the 
Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, 
and the party sat silent for a minute, while 
Alice thought over all she could remember 
about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t 
much. 

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. 
“What day of the month is it?” he said, turn- 
ing to Alice ; he had taken his watch out of his 
pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shak- 
ing it every now and then, and holding it to his 
ear. 

Alice considered a little, and then said, 
“The fourth.” 

“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I 


IN WONDERLAND. 


83 


told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he 
added, looking angrily at the March Hare. 

“It was the best butter,” the March Hare 
meekly replied. 

“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as 
well,” the Hatter grumbled; “you shouldn’t 
have put it in with the bread-knife.” 

The March Hare took the watch and looked 
at it gloomily; then he dipped it into his cup 
of tea, and looked at it again ; but he could 
think of nothing better to say than his first re- 
mark, “It was the best butter, you know.” 

Alice had been looking over his shoulder 
with some curiosity. “What a funny watch!”' 
she remarked. “It tells the day of the month* 
and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!” 

“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. 
“Does your watch tell you what year it is?” 

“Of course not,” Alice replied very readily; 
“but that’s because it stays the same year for 
such a long time together.” 

“Which is just the case with mine, ” said the 
Hatter. 

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s 
remark seemed to her to have no sort of mean- 
ing in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I 
don’t quite understand you,” she said, as 
politely as she could. 

“The Dormouse is asleep again, ” said the 
Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon 
its nose. 

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, 
and said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


<84 

of course; just what I was going to remark 
myself. ” 

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the 
Hatter said, turning to Alice again. 

“No, I give it up,” Alice replied. “What’s 
the answer?” 

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the 
Hatter. 

“Nor I,” said the March Hare. 

Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might 
do something better with the time,” she said, 
“than wasting it in asking riddles that have 
no answers.” 

“If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the 
Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. 
It’s him.” 

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. 

“Of course, you don’t!” the Hatter said, 
tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say 
you never even spoke to Time.” 

“Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied; 
4 ‘but I know I have to beat time when I learn 
music. ” 

“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. 
“He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only 
kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost 
anything you liked with the clock. For in- 
stance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the 
morning, just time to begin lessons; you’d 
only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round 
goes the clock in a twinkling ! Half-past one, 
time for dinner!” 

(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said 
to itself in a whisper.) 


IN WONDERLAND. 


85 


“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice 
thoughtfully; “but then — I shouldn’t be hun- 
gry for it, you know. ’ ’ 

“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter; 
“but you could keep it to half-pastone as long 
as you liked. ’ ’ 

“Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked. 

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. 
“Not I!” he replied. “We quarreled last 
March — just before he went mad, you know — ” 
(pointing with his teaspoon at the March 
Hare), “ — it was at the great concert given bjr 
the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing 



‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! 

How I wonder what you’re at!’ 

You know the song, perhaps?” 

‘‘I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. 


86 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter contin- 
ued, “in this way: — 

‘Up above the world you fly, 

Like a tea-tray in the sky. 

Twinkle, twinkle — ’ ” 

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began 
singing in its sleep, “Twinkle, twinkle, twin- 
kle, twinkle — ” and went on so long that they 
had to pinch it to make it stop. 

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” 
said the Hatter, “when the Queen bawled out, 
‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his 
head’ !” 

“How dreadfully savage!’’ exclaimed Alice. 

“And ever since that,” the Hatter went op 
in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I 
ask! It’s always six o’clock now.” 

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is 
that the reason so many tea-things are put out 
here?” she asked. 

“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: 
■“it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to 
wash the things between whiles.” 

“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” 
said Alice. 

“Exactly so,” said the Hatter; “as the 
things get used up. ” 

“But what happens when you come to the 
beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask. 

“Suppose we change the subject,” the March 
Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting 
tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a 
story. ’ ’ 


IN WONDERLAND. 


87 


“I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, 
rather alarmed at the proposal. 

“Then the Dormouse shall!” they both 
cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And they 
pinched it on both sides at once. 

The Dormouse slowly opened its eyes. “I 
wasn’t asleep,” it said in a hoarse, feeble 
voice, “I heard every word you fellows were 
saying. ” 

“Tell us a story!” said the March Hare. 

“Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice. 

“And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, 
“or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.” 

“Once upon a time there were three little 
sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry; 
“and their names were Elsie, Lacie and Tillie; 
and they lived at the bottom of a well — ” 

“What did they live on?” said Alice, who 
always took a great interest in questions of eat- 
ing and drinking. 

“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, 
after thinking a minute or two. 

“They couldn’t have done that, you know,” 
Alice gently remarked. “They’d have been 
ill.” 

“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “very 
ill.” 

Alice tried a little to fancy to herself what 
such an extraordinary way of living would be 
like, but it puzzled her too much ; so she went 
on: “But why did they live at the bottom of 
a well?” 

“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said 
to Alice, very earnestly. 


88 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“I’ve had nothing yet,’’ Alice replied in an 
offended tone; “so I can’t take more.’’ 

“You mean you can’t take less,’’ said the 
Hatter; “it’s very easy to take more than 
nothing. ’’ 

“Nobody asked your opinion,’’ said Alice. 

“Who’s making personal remarks now?’’ the 
Hatter asked triumphantly. 

Alice did not quite know what to say to this; 
so she helped herself to some tea and bread- 
and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, 
and repeated her question. “Why did they 
live at the bottom of a well?’’ 

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to 
think about it, and then said, “It was a treacle- 
well.” 

“There’s no such thing!’’ Alice was begin- 
ning very angrily, but the Hatter and the 
March Hare went, “Sh! Sh!’’ and the Dor- 
mouse sulkily remarked, “If you can’t be 
civil, you’d better finish the story for your- 
self.’’ 

“No, please go on!’’ Alice said very humbly. 
“I won’t interrupt you again. I dare say 
there may be one. ’’ 

“One, indeed!’’ said the Dormouse indig- 
nantly. However, he consented to go on. 
“And so these three little sisters — they were 
learning to draw, you know — ’’ 

“What did they draw?’’ said Alice, quite for- 
getting her promise. 

“Treacle,’’ said the Dormouse, without con- 
sidering at all, this time. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


89 


“I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hat- 
ter; ‘‘let’s all move one place on.” 

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse 
followed him; the March Hare moved into the 
Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly 
took the place of the March Hare. The Hat- 
ter was the only one who got any advantage 
from the change : and Alice was a good deal 
worse off than before, as the March Hare had 
just upset the milk-jug into his plate. 

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse 
again, so she began very cautiously : ‘‘But I 
don’t understand. Where did they draw the 
treacle from?” 

‘‘You can draw water out of a water- well,” 
said the Hatter, ‘‘so I should think you could 
draw treacle out of a treacle-well — eh, stupid !” 

‘‘But they were in the well,” Alice said to 
the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last 
remark. 

‘‘Of course, they were,” said the Dormouse, 
‘‘well in. ” 

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she 
let the Dormouse go on for some time without 
interrupting it. 

‘‘They were learning to draw,” the Dor- 
mouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, 
for it was getting very sleepy; “and they 
drew all manner of things —everything that 
begins with an M ” 

“Why with an M?” said Alice. 

“Why not?” said the March Hare. 

Alice was silent. 

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this 


90 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


time, and was going off into a doze ; but, on 
being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again 

with a little shriek, and went on: “ that 

begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and 
the moon, and memory, and muchness — you 
know you say things are ‘much of a muchness’ 
— did you ever see such a thing as a drawing 
of a muchness?” 

“Really, now you ask me,’’ said Alice, very 
much confused, “I don’t think ’’ 



“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. 

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice 
could bear: she got up in great disgust, and 
walked off : the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, 
and neither of the others took the least notice 
of her going, though she looked back once or 


IN WONDERLAND. 


91 


twice, half hoping that they would call after 
her : the last time she saw them, they were 
trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot. 

“At any rate I’ll never go there again!” said 
Alice, as she picked her way through the 
wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever 
was at in all my life!” 

Just as she said this, she noticed that one of 
the trees had a door leading right into it. 
“That’s very curious!” she thought. “But 
everything’s curious to-day. I think I may 
as well go in at once.” And in she went. 

Once more she found herself in the long hall, 
and close to the little glass table. “Now I’ll 
manage better this time,” she said to herself, 
and began by taking the little golden key, and 
unlocking the door that led into the garden. 
Then she set to work nibbling at the mush- 
room (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) 
till she was about a foot high : then she walked 
down the little passage: and then — she found 
herself at last in the beautiful garden, among 
the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains. 


52 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE QUEEN’S CROQUET GROUND. 

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of 
the garden: the roses growing on it were 
white, but there were three gardeners at it, 
busily painting them red. Alice thought this 
a very curious thing, and she went nearer to 
watch them, and, just as she came up to them, 
she heard one of them say “Look out now, 
Five! Don’t do splashing paint over me like 
that!” 

“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky 
tone. “Seven jogged my elbow. ” 

On which Seven looked up and said “That’s 
right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!” 

“You’d better not talk!’’ said Five. “I 
heard the Queen say only yesterday you 
deserved to be beheaded.” 

“What for?” said the one who had spoken 
first. 

“That’s none of your business, Two!” said 
Seven. 

“Yes, it is his business!” said Five. “And 
I’ll tell him — it was for bringing the cook tulip 
roots instead of onions. ’ ’ 

Seven flung down his brush, and had just 
begun “Well, of the all unjust things — ” when 
his eye’ chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood 


IN WONDERLAND. 


93 



watching them, and he checked himself sud- 
denly: the others looked round also, and all of 
them bowed low. 

“Would you tell me, please,’ ’ said Alice, a 
little timidly, “why you are painting those 
roses?” 

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at 
Two. Two began, in a low voice, “Why, the 
fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have 
been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one 
in by mistake ; and, if the Queen was to find it 
out, we should all have our heads cut off, you 



94 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, 
afore she comes, to — ” At this moment, Five, 
who had been anxiously looking across the 
garden, called out “The Queen! The Queen !” 
and the three gardeners instantly threw them- 
selves flat upon their faces. There was a 
sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked 
around, eager to see the Queen. 

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs : these 
were all shaped like the three gardeners, 
oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at 
the corners : next the ten courtiers : these were 
ornamented all over with diamonds, and 
walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After 
these came the royal children : there were ten 
of them, and the little dears came jumping 
merrily along, hand in hand, in couples : they 
were all ornamented with hearts. Next came 
the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and 
among them Alice recognized the White Rab- 
bit : it was talking in a hurried nervous man- 
ner, smiling at everything that was said, and 
went by without noticing her. Then followed 
the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King’s 
crown on a crimson velvet cushion ; and, last 
of all this grand procession, came THE KING 
AND THE QUEEN OF HEARTS. 

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought 
not to lie down on her face like the three gar- 
deners, but she could not remember ever hav- 
ing heard of such a rule at processions; “and 
besides, what would be the use of a proces- 
sion,” thought she, “if people had all to lie 
down on their faces, so that they couldn’t see 


IN WONDERLAND. 


95 


it?” So she stood where she was, and 
waited. 

When the procession came opposite to Alice, 
they all stopped and looked at her, and the 
Queen said, severely, ‘‘Who is this?” She 
said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed 
and smiled in reply. 

‘‘Idiot!” said the Queen, tossing her head 
impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went 
on: ‘‘What’s your name, child?” 

‘‘My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” 
said Alice very politely; but she added, to 
herself, ‘‘Why, they’re only a pack of cards, 
after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!” 

‘‘And who are these?” said the Queen, point- 
ing to the three gardeners who were lying 
round the rose-tree ; for, you see, as they were 
lying on their faces, and the pattern on their 
backs was the same as the rest of the pack, 
she could not tell whether they were garden- 
ers, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her 
own children. 

‘‘How should I know?” said Alice, surprised 
at her own courage. ‘‘It’s no business of 
mine. ’ ’ 

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, 
after glaring at her for a moment like a wild 
beast, began screaming “Off with her head! 
Off with ” 

“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and 
decidedly, and the Queen was silent. 

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and 
timidly said “Consider, my dear: she is only 
a child!” 


96 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 



The Queen turned angrily away from him, 
and said to the Knave “Turn them over!” 


The Knave did so, very carefully, with one 
foot. 

“Get up!” said the Queen in a shrill, 
loud voice, and the three gardeners instantly 
jumped up, and began bowing to the King, 


IN WONDERLAND. 


97 


the Queen, the royal children, and everybody 
else. 

“Leave off that!” screamed the Queen. 
“You make me giddy. ” And then, turning to 
the rose-tree, she went on “What have you 
been doing here?” 

“May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in 
a very humble tone, going down on one knee 
as he spoke, “we were trying — ” 

“I see!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile 
been examining the roses. “Off with their 
" heads!” and the procession moved on, three of 
the soldiers remaining behind to execute the 
unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for 
protection. 

“You shan’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and 
she put them into a large flower-pot that stood 
near. The three soldiers wandered about for 
a minute or two, looking for them, and then 
quietly marched off after the others. 

“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen. 

“Their beads are gone, if it please your 
Majesty the soldiers shouted in reply. 

“Thars right!” shouted the Queen. “Can 
you play croquet?” 

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, 
as the question was evidently meant for her. 

“Yes!” shouted Alice. 

“Come on, then!” roared the Queen, and 
Alice joined the procession, wondering very 
much what would happen next. 

“It’s — it’s a very fine day!” said a timid 
voice at her side. She was walking by the 


7 Alice’s Adventure 


98 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into 
her face. 

“Very," said Alice. “Where’s the Duch- 
ess?’’ 

“Hush! Hush!" said the Rabbit in a low 
hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his 
shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself 
upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and 
whispered “She’s under sentence of execu- 
tion." 

“What for?" said Alice. 

“Did you say ‘what a pity!’?" the Rabbit 
asked./ 

“Np, I didn’t,” said Alice. “I don’t think 
it’s at all a pity. I said ‘What for!’ ’’ 

“She boxed the Queen’s ears — ” the Rabbit 
began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. 

“Oh, hush!" the Rabbit whispered in a 
frightened tone. “The Queen will hear you! 
You see she came rather late, and the Queen 
said — " 

‘‘Get to your places!" shouted the Queen in 
a voice of thunder, and people began running 
about in all directions, tumbling up against 
each other: however, they got settled down 
in a minute or two, and the game began. 

Alice thought she had never seen such a 
curious croquet-ground in her life : it was all 
ridges and furrows: the croquet-balls were 
live hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamin- 
goes, and the soldiers had to double them- 
selves and stand on their hands and feet, to 
make the arches. 

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was 


IN WONDERLAND. 


99 

in managing her flamingo: she succceeded in 
getting its body tucked away comfortably 
enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging 
down, but generally, just as she had got its 
neck nicely straightened out, and was going 
to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it 



would twist itself round and look up in her 
face, with such a puzzled expression that she 
could not help bursting out laughing; and, 
when she had got its head down, and was going 
to begin again, it was very provoking to find 
that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was 
in the act of crawling away: besides all this,. 
l.6fC. 


100 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


there was generally a ridge or a furrow in the 
way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog 
to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always 
getting up and walking off to other parts of 
the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion 
that it was a very difficult game indeed. 

The players all played at once, without wait- 
ing for turns, quarreling all the while, and 
fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very 
short time the Queen was in a furious passion, 
and went stamping about, and shouting “Off 
with his head!” or “Off with her head!” about 
once in a minute. 

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, 
she had not as yet had any dispute with the 
Queen, but she knew that it might happen 
any minute, “and then,” thought she, “what 
would become of me? They’re dreadfully 
fond of beheading people here: the great won- 
der is, that there’s any one left alive!” 

She was looking about for some way of 
escape, and wondering whether she could get 
away without being seen, when she noticed a 
curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her 
very much at first, but after watching it a 
minute or two she made it out to be a grin, 
and she said to herself “It’s the Cheshire-Cat : 
now I shall have somebody to talk to.” 

“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as 
soon as there was mouth enough for it to 
speak with. 

Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then 
nodded. “It’s no use speaking to it,” she 
thought, “till its ears have come, or at least 


IN WONDERLAND. 


101 


one of them.” In another minute the whole 
head appeared, and then Alice put down her 
flamingo, and began an account of the game, 
feeling very glad she had some one to listen 
to her. The cat seemed to think that there 
was enough of it now in sight, and no more 
of it appeared. 

. '-‘‘I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice 
began, in rather a complaining tone, “and 
they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear 
oneself speak — and they don’t seem to have 
any rules in particular: at least, if there are, 
nobody attends to them — and you’ve no idea 
how confusing it is all the things being alive: 
for instance, there’s the arch I’ve got to go 
through next walking about at the other end 
of the ground — and I should have croqueted 
the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only it ran 
away when it saw mine coming!” 

‘‘How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat 
in a low voice. 

‘‘Not at all,” said Alice: ‘‘she’s so ex- 
tremely — ” Just then she noticed that the 
Queen was close behind her, listening: so she 
went on “ — likely to win, that it’s hardly worth 
while finishing the game.” 

The Queen smiled and passed on. 

“Who are you talking to?” said the King, 
coming up to Alice, and looking at the Cat’s 
head with great curiosity. 

“It’s a friend of mine — a Cheshire-Cat, ” said 
Alice: “allow me to introduce it.” 

“I dor’t like the look of it at all,” said the 


102 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


King: “however, it may kiss my hand, if it 
likes. ” 

“I’d rather not,” the Cat remarked. 

“Don’t be impertinent,” said the King, 
“and don’t look at me like that!” He got be- 
hind Alice as he spoke. 

“A cat may look at a king, ” said Alice. 
“I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t re- 
member where. ” 

“Well, it must be removed,” said the King, 
very decidedly; and he called to the Queen, 
who was passing at the moment, “My dear! I 
wish you would have this cat removed!” 

The Queen had only one way of settling all 
difficulties, great or small. “Off with his 
head!” she said without even looking round. 

“I’ll fetch the executioner myself,” said the 
King eagerly, and he hurried off. 

Alice thought she might as well go back and 
see how the game was going on, as she heard 
the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming 
with passion. She had already heard her sen- 
tence three of the players to be executed for 
having missed their turns, and she did not like 
the look of things at all, as the game was in 
such confusion that she never knew whether it 
was her turn or not. So she went off in search 
of her hedgehog. 

The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with 
another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an 
excellent opportunity for croqueting one of 
them with the other: the only difficulty was, 
that her flamingo was gone across to the other 
side of the garden, where Alice could see it 


IN WONDERLAND. 


103 


trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a 
tree. 

By the time she had caught the flamingo and 
brought it back, the fight was over, and both 
the hedgehogs were out of sight: “but it 
doesn’t matter much,” thought Alice, “as all 
the arches are gone from this side of the 
ground. So she tucked it away under her 
arm, that it might not escape again, and went 
back to have a little more conversation with 
her friend. 

When she got back to the Cheshire-Cat, she 
was surprised to find quite a large crowd col- 
lected round it : there was a dispute going on 
between the executioner, the King, and the 
Queen, who were all talking at once, while all 
the rest were quite silent, and looked very 
uncomfortable. 

The moment Alice appeared, she was 
appealed to by all three to settle the question, 
and they repeated their arguments to her, 
though, as they all spoke at once, she found it 
very hard to make out exactly what they said. 

The executioner’s argument was, that you 
couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body 
to cut it off from: that he had never had to 
do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to 
begin at his time of life. 

The King’s argument was that anything 
that had a head could be beheaded, and that 
you weren’t to talk nonsense. 

The Queen’s argument was that, if some- 
thing wasn’t done about it in less than no time, 
she’d have everybody executed, all round 


104 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 



(It was this last remark that had made the 
whole party look so grave and anxious. ) 

Alice could think of nothing else to say but 
“It belongs to the Duchess: you’d better ask 
her about it. ’’ 

“She’s in prison,’’ the Queen said to the 


IN WONDERLAND. 


105 


executioner: “fetch her here. ” And the exe- 
cutioner went off like an arrow. 

The Cat’s head began fading away the mo- 
ment he was gone, and, by the time he had 
come back with the Duchess, it had entirely 
disappeared: so the King and the executioner 
ran wildly up and down, looking for it, while 
the rest of the party went back to the game. 


106 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE MOCK TURTLE’S STORY. 

“You can’t think how glad I am to see you 
again, you dear old thing!’’ said the Duchess, 
as she tucked her arm affectionately into 
Alice v s, and they walked off together. 

Alice was very glad to find her in such a 
pleasant temper, and thought to herself that 
perhaps it was only the pepper that had made 
her so savage when they met in the kitchen. 

“When I’m a Duchess,’’ she said to herself 
(not in a very hopeful tone, though), “I won’t 
have any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup 
does very well without — Maybe it’s always 
pepper that makes people hot-tempered,’’ she 
went on, very much pleased at having found 
out a new kind of rule, “and vinegar that 
makes them sour — and camomile that makes 
them bitter — and — barley-sugar and such 
things that makes children sweet-tempered. 
I only wish people knew that: then they 
wouldn’t be so stingy about it, you know ’’ 

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this 
time, and was a little startled when she heard 
her voice close to her ear. “You’re thinking 
about something, my dear, and that makes 
you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now 


IN WONDERLAND. 


107 


what the moral of that is, but I shall remem- 
ber it in a bit. ” 

“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to 
remark. 

* ‘ Tut, tut, child ! ’ ’ said the Duchess. * ‘ E very- 
thing’s got a moral, if only you can find it.” 



And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's 
side as she spoke. 

Alice did not much like her keeping so close 
to her; first, because the Duchess was very 


108 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


ugly ; and, secondly, because she was exactly 
the right height to rest her chin on Alice’s 
shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp 
chin. However, she di-d not like to be rude ; 
so she bore it as well as she could. 

“The game’s going on rather better now,” 
she said, by way of keeping up the conversa- 
tion a little. “ ’Tis so,” said the Duchess; 
“and the moral of that is — ‘Oh, ’tis love, ’tis 
love, that makes the world go round’ !’’ 

“Somebody said,’’ Alice whispered, “that 
it’s done by everybody minding their own busi- 
ness!’’ 

“Ah, well! It means much the same 
thing,’’ said the Duchess, digging her sharp 
little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, 
“and the moral of that is — ‘Take care of the 
sense, and the sounds will take care of them- 
selves. ’ ’’ 

“How fond she is of finding morals in 
things!’’ Alice thought to herself. 

“I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t 
put my arm round your waist,’’ the Duchess 
said, after a pause; “the reason is that I’m 
doubtful about the temper of your flamingo. 
Shall I try the experiment?’’ 

“He might bite, ’’ Alice cautiously replied, 
not feeling at all anxious to have the experi- 
ment tried. 

“Very true,’’ said the Duchess; “flamingoes 
and mustard both bite. And the moral of that 
is — ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ ’’ 

“Only mustard isn’t a bird,’’ Alice re- 
marked. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


109 


“Right, as usual,” said the Duchess; “what 
a clear way you have of putting things!” 

“It’s a mineral, I think,” said Alice. 

“Of course, it is,” said the Duchess, who 
seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice 
said; “there’s a large mustard-mine near here. 
And the moral of that is — ‘The more there is 
of mine, the less there is of yours.’ ” 

“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Alice, who had 
not attended to this last remark. “It’s a veg- 
etable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.” 

“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; 
“and the moral of that is — ‘Be what you would 
seem to be’ — or, if you’d like it put more sim- 
ply — ‘Never imagine yourself not to be other- 
wise than what it might apppear to others that 
what you were or might have been was not 
otherwise than what you had been would have 
appeared to them to be otherwise.’ ” 

“I think I should understand that better,” 
Alice said very politely, “if I had it written 
down; but I can’t quite follow it as you say 
it.” 

“That’s nothing to what I could say if I 
chose,” the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone. 

“Pray don’t trouble youself to say it any 
longer than that,” said Alice. 

“Oh, don’t talk about trouble!” said the 
Duchess. “I make you a present of everything 
I’ve said as yet. ” 

“A cheap sort of present!” thought Alice. 
“I’m glad people don’t give birthday presents 
like that!” But she did not venture to say it 
out loud. 


110 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Thinking again?” the Duchess asked, with 
another dig of her sharp little chin. 

“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply, 
for she was beginning to feel a little worried. 

“Just about as much right,” said the Duch- 
ess, “as pigs have to fly; and the m ” 

But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duch- 
ess’s voice died away, even in the middle of 
her favorite word ‘moral,’ and the arm that 
was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice 
looked up, and there stood the Queen in front 
of them, with her arms folded, frowning like 
a thunderstorm. 

“A fine day, your Majesty!” the Duchess 
began in a low, weak voice. 

“Now, I give you fair warning,” shouted 
the Queen, stamping on the ground as she 
spoke; “either you or your head must be off, 
and that in about half no time ! Take your 
choice!” 

The Duchess took her choice, and was gone 
in a moment. 

“Let’s go on with the game,” the Queen 
said to Alice ; and Alice was too much fright- 
ened to say a word, but slowly followed her 
back to the croquet ground. 

The other guests had taken advantage of the 
Queen’s absence, and were resting in the 
shade; however, the moment they saw her, 
they hurried back to the game, the Queen 
merely remarking that a moment’s delay would 
cost them their lives. 

All the time they were playing the Queen 
never left off quarreling with the other play- 


IN WONDERLAND. 


Ill 


ers, and shouting, “Off with his head!” or 
“Off with her head!” Those whom she sen- 
tenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, 
who, of course, had to leave off being arches to- 
do this, so that, by the end of half an hour or 
so, there were no arches left, and all the play- 
ers, except the King, the Queen and Alice, 
were in custody and under sentence of execu- 
tion. 

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, 
and said to Alice, “Have you seen the Mock 
Turtle yet?” 

“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what 
a Mock Turtle is. ’ ’ 

“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made 
from,’’ said the Queen. 

“I never saw one, or heard of one, ’’ said 
Alice. 

“Come on, then,’’ said the Queen, “and 
he shall tell you his history.’’ 

As they walked off together, Alice heard the 
King say in a low voice, to the company gen- 
erally, “You are all pardoned.’’ “Come, 
that’s a good thing!’’ she said to herself, for 
she had felt quite unhappy at the number of 
executions the Queen had ordered. 

They very soon come upon a Gryphon, lying 
fast asleep in the sun. (If you don’t know 
what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) “Up, 
lazy thing!’’ said the Queen, “and take this 
young lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear 
his history. I must go back and see after some 
executions I have ordered,’’ and she walked 
off, leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon. 


112 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, 
button the whole, she thought it would be 
quite as safe to stay with it as to go after that 
savage Queen ; so she waited. 

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes ; 
then it watched the Queen till she was out of 
sight; then it chuckled. “What fun!” said 
the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice. 

“What is the fun?” said Alice. 

“Why, she,” said the Gryphon. “It’s all 
her fancy, that ; they never executes nobody, 
you know. Come on!” 

“Everybody says ‘come on!’ here,” thought 
Alice, as she went slowly after it; “I never 
was so ordered about before, in all my life, 
never!” 

They had not gone far before they saw the 
Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and 
lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they 
came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as 
if his heart would break. She pitied him 
deeply. “What is his sorrow?” she asked the 
Gryphon. And the Gryphon answered, very 
nearly in the same words as before, “It’s all 
his fancy, that; he hasn’t got no sorrow, you 
know. Come on!” 

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who 
looked at them with large eyes full of tears, 
but said nothing. 

“This here young lady,” said the Gryphon, 
“she wants for to know your history, she do.” 

“I’ll tell it her,” said the Mock Turtle in a 
deep, hollow tone. “Sit down, both of you, 
and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


113 


So they sat down, and nobody spoke for 
some minutes. Alice thought to herself, “I 
don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t 
begin. ’ ’ But she waited patiently. 

“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with 
a deep sigh, “I was a real Turtle.” 

These words were followed by a very long 
silence, broken only by an occasional excla- 
mation of “Hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and 
the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Tur- 
tle. Alice was very nearly getting up and say- 
ing, “Thank you, Sir, for your interesting 
story,” but she could not help thinking there 
must be more to come, so she sat still and said 
nothing. 

“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle 
went on at last, more calmly, though still sob- 
bing a little now and then, “we went to school 
in the sea. The master was an old Turtle — 
we used to call him Tortoise ” 

“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t 
one?” Alice asked. 

“We called him Tortoise because he taught 
us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily. “Really, 
you are very dull!” 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for 
asking such a simple question,” added the 
Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and 
looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink 
into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to 
the Mock Turtle, “Drive on, old fellow! Don’t 
be all day about it!” and he went on in these 
words : — 


8 Alice's Adventure 



“Yes, we went to school in the sea, though 

you mayn’t believe it ’’ 

“I never said I didn’t!” interrupted Alice. 
“You did,” said the Mock Turtle. 

“Hold your tongue!” added the Gryphon, 
before Alice could speak again. The Mock 
Turtle went on. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


11& 


“We had the best of educations — in fact, we 
went to school every day ” 

“I’ve been to a day-school, too,” said Alice. 
“You needn’t be so proud as all that.” 

“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle, a lit- 
tle anxiously. 

“Yes,” said Alice; “we learned French and 
music. ' ’ 

“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle. 

“Certainly not!” said Alice indignantly. 

“Ah! Then yours wasn’t a really good 
school,” said the Mock Turtle in a tone of 
great relief. “Now, at ours, they had, at the 
end of the bill, ‘French, music, and washing — 
extra. ’ ” 

“You couldn’t have wanted it much,” said 
Alice; “living at the bottom of the sea.” 

“I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock 
Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular 
course. ’ ’ 

“What was that?” inquired Alice. 

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin 
with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the 
different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition* 
Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” 

“I never heard of ‘Uglification,”’ Alice ven- 
tured to say. “What is it?” 

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in sur- 
prise. “Never heard of uglifying!” it ex- 
claimed. “You know what to beautify is, I 
suppose?” 

“Yes,” said Alice doubtfully; “it means — to 
— make — anything — prettier. ” 

“Well, then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you 


116 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


don’t know what to uglify is, you are a sim- 
pleton. ’ ’ 

Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any 
more questions about it ; so she turned to the 
Mock Turtle, and said, “What else had you to 
learn?” 

“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle 
replied, counting off the subjects on his flap- 
pers, — “Mystery, ancient and modern, with 
Seaography ; then Drawling — the Drawling- 
master was an old conger-eel, that used to 
come once a week ; he taught us Drawling, 
Stretching and Fainting in Coils. ” 

“What was that like?” said Alice. 

“Well, I can’t show it you, myself,” the 
Mock Turtle said; “I’m too stiff. And the 
Gryphon never learnt it. ’ ’ 

“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon; “I went 
to the Classical master, though. He was an 
old crab, he was. ” 

“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle 
said with a sigh. “He taught Laughing and 
Grief, they used to say. ’ ’ 

“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, 
sighing in his turn ; and both creatures hid their 
faces in their paws. 

“And how many hours a day did you do les- 
sons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the 
subject. 

“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock 
Turtle; “nine the next, and so on.” 

“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice. 

“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


117 


the Gryphon remarked; “because they lessen 
from day to day. ’ ’ 

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she 
thought it over a little before she made her 
next remark. “Then the eleventh day must 
have been a holiday?” 

“Of course it was,” said the Mock Turtle. 

“And how did you manage on the twelfth ?”“ 
Alice went on eagerly. 

“That’s enough about lessons,” the Gry- 
phon interrupted in a very decided tone. “Tell 
her something about the games now.” 


118 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


CHAPTER X. 

THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE. 

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew 
the back of one flapper across his eyes. He 
looked at Alice and tried to speak, but, for a 
minute or two, sobs choked his voice. “Same 
as if he had a bone in this throat, ’ ’ said the 
<jryphon ; and it set to work shaking him and 
punching him in the back. At last the Mock 
Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears 
running down his cheeks, he went on again : — 

“You may not have lived much under the 
>sea — ** (“I haven’t,” said Alice) — “and per- 
haps you were never even introduced to a lob- 
ster — ” (Alice began to say, “I once tasted 

but checked herself hastily, and said, 

“‘No, never”), “ so you can have no idea 

^what a delightful thing a Lobster- Quadrille 
dsW 

“No, indeed,” said Alice. “What sort of a 
•dance is it?” 

“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you first form 
into a line along the sea-shore ” 

“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle. 
"“Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then, when 
you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the 
way ” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


119 


“That generally takes some time,” inter- 
rupted the Gryphon. 

“ — you advance twice “ 

“Each with a lobster as a partner!” cried 
the Gryphon. 

“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said; “ad- 
vance twice, set to partners ’ ’ 

“ — change lobsters, and retire in same or- 
der,” continued the Gryphon. 

“Then, you know,” the Mock Turtle went 

on, “you throw the ” 

“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with 
a bound into the air. 

“ — as far out to sea as you can ” 

“Swim after them!” screamed the Gryphon. 
“Turn a somersault in the sea!” cried the 
Mock Turtle, capering vildly about. 

4 4 Change lobsters again ! ’ ’ yelled the Gryphon 
at the top of its voice. 

“Back to land again, and — that’s all the first 
figure,” said the Mock Turtle, suddenly drop- 
ping his voice ; and the two creatures, who had 
been jumping about like mad things all this 
time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, 
and looked at Alice. 

“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice 
timidly. 

“Would you like to see a little of it?” said 
the Mock Turtle. 

“Very much, indeed,” said Alice. 

“Come, let’s try the first figure!” said the 
Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. “We can do it 
without lobsters, you know. Which shall 
sing?” 


120 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Oh, you sing,” said the Gryphon. “I’ve 
forgotten the words. ” 



So they began solemnly dancing round and 
round Alice, every now and then treading on 
her toes when they passed too close, and wav- 
ing their forepaws to mark the time, while the 
Mock Turtle sang this, very lowly and sadly: — 


IN WONDERLAND. 


121 


“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting* 
to a snail, 

“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s 
treading on my tail. 

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all 
advance ! 

They are waiting on the shingle — will you 
come and join the dance? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, 
will you join the dance? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, 
won’t you join the dance? 

“You can really have no notion how delightful 
it will be 

When they take us up and throw us, with the 
lobsters, out to sea!” 

But the snail replied, “Too far, too far!” and 
gave a look askance — 

Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he 
would not join the dance. 

Would not, could not, would not, could not, 
would not join the dance. 

Would not, could not, would not, could not, 
could not join the dance. 

“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly 
friend replied. 

“There is another shore, you know, upon the 
other side. 

The further off from England the nearer is to 
France — 

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come 
and join the dance. 


122 


ALICE'S ADVENTURES 


Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, 
will you join the dance? 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, 
won’t you join the dance?” 

“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance 
to watch,” said Alice, feeling very glad that it 
was over at last; “and I do so like that curious 
song about the whiting!” 

“Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Tur- 
tle, “they — you’ve seen them, of course?” 

“Yes,” said Alice, “I’ve often seen them at 
dinn — ” she checked herself hastily. 

“I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said 
the Mock Turtle; “but if you’ve seen them so 
often, of course, you know what they’re like?” 

“I believe so,” Alice replied thoughtfully. 
“They have their tails in their mouths — and 
they’re all over crumbs.” 

“You’re wrong about the crumbs,” said the 
Mock Turtle: “crumbs would all wash off in 
the sea. But they have their tails in their 
mouths; and the reason is — ” here the Mock 
Turtle yawned and shut his eyes. “Tell her 
about the reason and all that,” he said to the 
Gryphon. 

“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that 
they would go with the lobsters to the dance. 
So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to 
fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in 
their mouths. So they couldn’t get them out 
again. That’s all.” 

“Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interest- 


IN WONDERLAND. 


123 


ing. I never knew so much about a whiting 
before.” * 

“I can tell you more than that, if you like,” 
said the Gryphon. ‘‘Do you know why it’s 
called a whiting?” 

‘‘I never thought about it,” said Alice. 
“Why?” 

“It does the boots and shoes,” the Gryphon 
replied very solemnly. 

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the 
boots and shoes!” she repeated in a wondering 
tone. 

“Why, what are your shoes done with?” said 
the Gryphon. “I mean, what makes them so 

shin}'?” 

Alice looked down at them, and considered a 
little before she gave her answer. “They’re 
done with blacking, I believe.” 

“Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gry- 
phon went on in a deep voice, ‘‘are done with 
whiting. Now you know.” 

“And what are they made of?” Alice asked 
in a tone of great curiosity. 

“Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon 
replied, rather impatiently: “any shrimp 
could have told you that.” 

“If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose 
thoughts were still running on the song, 
“I’d have said to the porpoise ‘Keep back, 
please! We don’t want you with us!’ ” 

“They were obliged to have him with them, ” 
the Mock Turtle said. “No wise fish would 
go anywhere without a porpoise.” 


124 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Wouldn’t it, really?” said Alice, in a tone 
of great surprise. 

“Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle. 
“Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he 
was going a journey, I should say ‘With what 
porpoise?’ ” 

“Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice. 

“I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle 
replied, in an offended tone. And the Gry- 
phon added “Come, let’s hear some of your 
adventures.” 

“I could tell you my adventures — beginning 
from this morning, ’ ’ said Alice a little timidly ; 
“but it’s no use going back to yesterday, 
because I was a different person then.” 

“Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle. 

“No, no! The adventures first,” said the 
Gryphon in an impatient tone: “explanations 
take such a dreadful time.” 

So Alice began telling them her adventures 
from the time when she first saw the White 
Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it, just 
at first, the two creatures got so close to her, 
one on each side, and opened their eyes and 
mouths so very wide ; but she gained courage 
as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly 
quiet till she got to the part about her repeating 
“You are old, Father William,” to the Cater- 
pillar, and the words all coming different, and 
then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and 
said “That’s very curious!” 

“It’s all about as curious as it can be,” said 
the Gryphon. 

“It all came different!” the Mock Turtle re- 


IN WONDERLAND. 


125 


peated thoughtfully. ‘ * I should like to hear her 
try and repeat something now. Tell her to 
begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he 
thought it had some kind of authority over 
Alice. 

‘‘Stand up and repeat 4 ’Tis the voice of the 
sluggard,’ ” said the Gryphon. 

“How the creatures order one about, and 
make one repeat lessons!” thought Alice. “I 
might just as well be at school at once.” 
However, she got up, and began to repeat it, 
but her head was so full of the Lobster-Quad- 
rille, that she hardly knew what she was say- 
ing; and the words came very queer indeed: — 

44 ’Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him 
declare 

‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar 
my hair. ’ 

As the duck with its eyelids, so he with his 
nose 

Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out 
his toes. 

When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, 
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the 
Shark : 

But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, 
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound. ” 

“That’s different from what I used to say 
when I was a child,” said the Gryphon. 

“Well, I never heard it before,” said the 
Mock Turtle; “but it sounds uncommon non- 
sense.” 


126 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


Alice said nothing: she had sat down with 
her face in her hands, wondering if anything 
would ever happen in a natural way again. 

“I should like to have it explained,” said, 
the Mock Turtle. 

“She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon 
hastily. ‘‘Go on with the next verse.” 

‘‘But about his toes?” the Mock Turtle per- 
sisted. ‘‘How could he turn them out with his 
nose, you know?” 

‘‘It’s the first position in dancing,” Alice 
said, but she was dreadfully puzzled by the 
whole thing, and longed to change the subject. 

‘‘Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon 
repeated: ‘‘it begins ‘I passed by his gar- 
den.’ ” 

Alice did not dare to disobey, though she 
felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went 
on in a trembling voice : 

‘‘I passed by his garden, and marked, with one 
eye, 

How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a 
pie: 

The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and 
meat, 

While the Owl had the dish as its share of the 
treat. 

When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a 
boon, 

Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: 
While the Panther received knife and fork with 
a growl, 

And concluded the banquet by ” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


127 


“What is the use of repeating all that stuff?’* 
the Mock Turtle interrupted, “if you don’t 
explain it as you go on? It’s by far the most 
confusing thing I ever heard!” 

“Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said 
the Gryphon, and Alice was only too glad to 
do so. 

“Shall we try another figure of the Lobster 
Quadrille?” the Gryphon went on. “Or would 
you like the Mock Turtle to sing you another 
song?” 

“Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle 
would be so kind,” Alice replied, so eagerly 
that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended * 
tone, “Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing 
her ‘Turtle Soup,’ will you, old fellow?” 

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, 
in a voice choked with sobs, to sing this: — 

“Beautiful soup, so rich and green, 

Waiting in a hot tureen ! 

Who for such dainties would not stoop? 

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup ! 

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup ! 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop! 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop! 

Soo— oop of the e — e — evening, 

Beautiful, beautiful Soup! 

“Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, 

Game, or any other dish? 

Who would not give all else for two 
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? 
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? 


128 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


Beau — ootiful Soo — oop! 

Beau — ootiful Soo — oop! 

Soo — oop of the e — e — evening, 

Beautiful, beauti— FUL SOUP!” 

“Chorus again!” cried the Gryphon, and the 
Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when 
a cry of “The trial’s beginning!” was heard in 
the distance. 

“Come on!” cried the Gryphon, and, taking 
Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without wait- 
ing for the end of the song. 

“What trial is it?” Alice panted as she ran; 
but the Gryphon only answered “Come on!” 
and ran the faster, while more and more 
faintly came, carried on the breeze that fol- 
lowed them, the melancholy words : — 

“Soo — oop of the e — e — evening, 

Beautiful, beautiful Soup!” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


129 


CHAPTER XI. 

WHO STOLE THE TARTS? 

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated 
on their throne when they arrived, with a 
great crowd assembled about them — all sorts 
of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole 
pack of cards: the Knave was standing before 
them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to 
guard him ; and near the King was the White 
Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a 
scroll of parchment in the other. In the very 
middle of the court was a table, with a large 
dish of tarts upon it : they looked so good, that 
it made Alice quite hungry to look at them — 
“I wish they’d get the trial done,” she 
thought, “and hand round the refreshments!” 
But there seemed to be no chance of this; so 
she began looking at everything about her to 
pass away the time. 

Alice had never been in a court of justice 
before, but she had read about them in books, 
*and she was quite pleased to find that she 
knew the name of nearly everything there. 
“That's the judge,” she said to herself, 
“because of his great wig.” 

The judge, by the way, was the King; and, 
as he wore his crown over the wig (look at the 
frontispiece if you want to see how he did it), 

9 Alice’s Adventure 


130 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


he did not look at all comfortable, and it was 
certainly not becoming. 

“And that’s the jury-box,” thought Alice * 
“and those twelve creatures, ” (she was obliged 
to say “creatures,” you see, because some of 
them were animals, and some were birds,) “I 
suppose they are the jurors. ” She said this 
last word two or three times over to herself, 
being rather proud of it: for she thought, and 
rightly, too, that very few little girls of her 
age knew the meaning of it at all. However, 
“jury-men” would have done just as well. 

The twelve jurors were all writing very 
busily on slates. “What are they doing?”' 1 
Alice whispered to the Gryphon. “They 
can’t have anything to put down yet, before 
the trial’s begun. ” 

“They’re putting down their names,” the 
Gryphon whispered in reply, “for fear they 
should forget them before the end of the trial. ’ * 

4 4 Stupid things ! ’ * Alice began in a loud indig* 
nant voice ; but she stopped herself hastily, for 
the White Rabbit cried out “Silence in the 
court!” and the King put on his spectacles and 
looked anxiously round, to make out who was 
talking. 

Alice could see, as well as if she were look- 
ing over their shoulders, that all the jurors 
were writing down “Stupid things!” on their- 
slates, and she could even make out that one* 
of them didn’t know how to spell “stupid,” and 
that he had to ask his neighbor to tell him. 
“A nice muddle their slates’ll be in, before the 
trial’s over!” thought Alice. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


131 


One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. 
This, of course, Alice could not stand, and she 
went round the court and got behind him, and 
very soon found an opportunity of taking it 
away. She did it so quickly that the poor 



little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not 
make out at all what had become of it; so, 
after hunting all about for it, he was obliged 
to write with one finger for the rest of the day; 
and this was of very little use, as it left no^ 
mark on the slate. 


132 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“Herald, read the accusation!” said the 
King. 

On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts 
on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parch- 
ment-scroll, and read as follows : — 

“The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, 
All on a summer day : 

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts 
And took them quite away ! ’ ’ 

“Consider your verdict,” the King said to 
the jury. 

“Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily inter- 
rupted. “There’s a great deal to come before 
that ! ’ ’ 

“Call the first witness,” said the King; and 
the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the 
trumpet, and called out “First witness!” 

The first witness was the Hatter. He came 
in with a teacup in one hand and a piece of 
bread-and-butter in the other. ‘ ‘ I beg pardon, 
your Majesty,” he began, “for bringing these 
in; but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I 
was sent for. ” 

“You ought to have finished,” said the king. 
“When did you begin?” 

The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who 
had followed him into the court, aim-in-arm 
with the Dormouse. “Fourteenth of March 
I think it was,” he said. 

“Fifteenth,” said the March Hare. 

“Sixteenth,” said the Dormouse. 

“Write that down,” the King said to the 


IN WONDERLAND. 


m 


jury; and the jury eagerly wrote down all 
three dates on their slates, and then added 
them up, and reduced the answer to shillings 
and pence. 

“Take off your hat,’’ the King said to the 
Hatter. 

“It isn’t mine,’’ said the Hatter. 

“Stolen!” the King exclaimed, turning to 
the jury, who instantly made a memorandum 
of the fact. 

“I keep them to sell,” the Hatter added as 
an explanation. “I’ve none of my own. I’m 
a hatter. ” 

Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and 
began staring hard at the Hatter, who turned 
pale and fidgeted. 

“Give your evidence,” said the King; “and 
don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed 
on the spot. ” 

This did not seem to encourage the witness 
at all: he kept shifting from one foot to the 
other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in 
his confusion he bit a large piece out of his 
teacup instead of the bread-and-butter. 

Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious 
sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until 
she made out w T hat it was: she was beginning 
to grow larger again, and she thought at first 
she would get up and leave the court; but on 
second thoughts she decided to remain where 
she was as long as there was room for her. 

“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so,” said the 
Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. “I 
can hardly breathe. ” 


134 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly: 
“I’m growing. ” 

“You’ve no right to grow here,” said the 
Dormouse. 

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Alice more 
boldly: “you know you’re growing too.” 

“Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,” said 
the Dormouse: “not in that ridiculous fash- 
ion. ’ ’ And he got up very sulkily and crossed 
over to the other side of the court. 



All this time the Queen had never left off 
staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dor- 
mouse crossed the court, she said, to one of the 
officers of the court, “Bring me the list of the 


IN WONDERLAND. 


135 


singers in the last concert!” on which the 
wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook off 
both his shoes. 

“Give your evidence,” the King repeated 
angrily, “or I’ll have you executed, whether 
you’re nervous or not.” 

“I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” the Hatter 
began, in a trembling voice, “and I hadn’t 
begun my tea — not above a week or so — and 
what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin 
— and the twinkling of the tea ” 

“The twinkling of what?” said the King. 

“It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied. 

“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said 
the King sharply. “Do you take me for a 
dunce? Go on!” 

“I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on, 
“and most things twinkled after that — only the 
March Hare said ” 

“I didn’t!” the March Hare interrupted in a 
great hurry. 

“You did!” said the Hatter. 

“I deny it!” said the March Hare. 

“He denies it,” said the King: “leave out 
that part.” 

“Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said ” 

the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to 
see if he would deny it too ; but the Dormouse 
denied nothing, being fast asleep. 

“After that,” continued the Hatter, “I cut 
some more bread-and-butter ” 

“But what did the Dormouse say?” one of the 
jury asked. 

“That I can’t remember,” said the Hatter. 


136 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


‘‘You must remember,” remarked the King, 
“or I’ll have you executed.” 

The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and 
bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. 
“I’m a poor man, your Majesty,” he began. 

‘‘You’re a very poor speaker,” said the 
King. 

Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and 
was immediately suppressed by the officers of 
the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I 
will just explain to you how it was done. They 
had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the 
mouth with strings: into this they slipped the 
guinea pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) 

“I’m glad I’ve seen that done,” thought 
Alice. “I’ve so often read in the newspapers, 
at the end of trials, ‘There was some attempt 
at applause, which was immediately suppressed 
by the officers of the court,’ and I never under- 
stood what it meant till now. ” 

“If that’s all you know about it, you may 
stand down,” continued the King. 

' “I can’t go no lower,” said the Hatter: 
“I’m on the floor, as it is.” 

“Then you may sit down,” the King re- 
plied. 

Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was 
suppressed. 

“Come, that finishes the guinea-pigs!” 
thought Alice. “Now we shall get on better.” 

“I’d rather finish my tea,” said the Hatter, 
with an anxious look at the Queen, who was 
reading the list of singers. 

“You may go,” said the King, and the Hat- 


IN WONDERLAND. 


137 


ter hurriedly left the court, without even 
waiting to put his shoes on. 

“ and just take his head off outside, ” the 

Queen added to one of the officers; but the 
Hatter was out of sight before the officer could 
get to the door. 


“Call the next witness!” said the King. 

The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. 
She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and 
Alice guessed who it was, even before she got 
into the court, by the way the people near the 
door began sneezing all at once. 

“Give your evidence,” said the King. 

“Shan’t,” said the cook. 

The King looked anxiously at the White 
Rabbit, who said, in a low voice, “Your Maj- 
esty must cross-examine this witness.” 

“Well, if I must, I must,” the King said 
with a melancholy air, and, after folding his 



138 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes 
were nearly out of sight, he said, in a deep 
voice, “What are tarts made of?” 

“Pepper, mostly,” said the cook. 

“Treacle,” said a sleepy voice behind her. 

‘ 4 Collar that Dormouse ! ’ ’ the Queen shrieked 
out. “Behead that Dormouse! Turn that 
Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch 
him! Off with his whiskers!” 

| For some minutes the whole court was in 
confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, 
and, by the time they had settled down again, 
the cook had disappeared. 

“Never mind!” said the King, with an air 
of great relief. “Call the next witness.” 
And, he added, in an under-tone to the Queen, 
“Really, my dear, you must cross-examine the 
next witness. It quite makes my forehead 
ache!” 

Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fum- 
bled over the list, feeling very curious to see 
what the next witness would be like, “ — for 
they haven’t got much evidence yet,” she said 
to herself. Imagine her surprise, when the 
White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill 
little voice, the name “Alice!” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


139 


CHAPTER XII. 

Alice’s evidence. 

, “Here!” cried Alice, quite forgetting in the 
flurry of the moment how large she had 
grown in the last few minutes, and she 
jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped 
over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, 
upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of 
the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling 
about, reminding her very much of a globe of 
gold-fish she had accidentally upset the week 
before. 

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” she exclaimed in 
a tone of great dismay, and began picking 
them up again as quickly as she could, for the 
accident of the gold-fish kept running in her 
head and she had a vague sort of idea that they 
must be collected at once and put back into the 
jury-box, or they would die. 

“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King, 
in a very grave voice, “until all the jurymen 
are back in their proper places — all,” he re- 
peated with great emphasis, looking hard at 
Alice as he said so. 

Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, 
in her haste, she had put the Lizard in head 
downwards, and the poor little thing was wav- 
ing its tail about in a melancholy way, being 


140 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 



quite unable to move. She soon got it out 
again, and put it right; “not that it signifies 
much,” she said to herself; “I should think it 
would be quite as much use in the trial one 
way up as the other.” 

As soon as the jury had a little recovered 
from the shock of being upset, and their slates 


IN WONDERLAND. 


141 


and pencils had been found and handed back 
to them, they set to work very diligently to 
write out a history of the accident, all except 
the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome 
to do anything but sit with its mouth open, 
gazing up into the roof of the court. 

“What do you know about this business?'* 
the King said to Alice. 

“Nothing,” said Alice. 

“Nothing whatever?” persisted the King. 

“Nothing whatever,” said Alice. 

“That’s very important,” the King said, 
turning to the jury. They were just begin- 
ning to write this down on their slates, when 
the White Rabbit interrupted: “Unimportant, 
your Majesty means, of course,” he said, in a 
very respectful tone, but frowning and mak- 
ing faces at him as he spoke. 

“Unimportant, of course, I meant,” the 
King hastily said, and went on to himself in 
an undertone, “important — unimportant — un- 
important — important ” as if he were try- 
ing which word sounded best. 

Some of the jury wrote it down “important, ’* 
and some “unimportant.” Alice could see 
this, as she was near enough to look over 
their slates; “but it doesn’t matter a bit,” she 
thought to herself. 

At this moment the King, who had been for 
some time busily writing in his note-book, 
called out “Silence!" and read out from his 
book, “Rule Forty- two. All persons more 
than a mile high to leave the court." 

Everybody looked at Alice. 


142 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“I’m not a mile high,” said Alice. 

“You are,” said the King. 

“Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen. 

“Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,” said Alice: 
“besides, that’s not a regular rule: you in- 
vented it just now.” 

“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the 
King. 

“Then it ought to be Number One,” said 
Alice. 

The King turned pale, and shut his note- 
book hastily. “Consider your verdict,” he 
said to the jury, in a low trembling voice. 

“There’s more evidence to come yet, please 
your Majesty,” said the White Rabbit, jump- 
ing up in a great hurry: “this paper has just 
been picked up. ’ ’ * 

“What’s in it?” said the Queen. 

“I haven’t opened it yet,” said the White 
Rabbit; “but it seems to be a letter written 
by the prisoner to — to somebody. ’ ’ 

“It must have been that,” said the King* 
“unless it was written to nobody, which isn’t 
usual, you know. ” 

“Who is it directed to?” said one of the jury- 
men. 

“It isn’t directed at all,” said the White 
Rabbit: “in fact, there’s nothing written on 
the outside.” He unfolded the paper as he 
spoke, and added “it isn’t a letter, after all: 
it’s a set of verses.” 

“Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?” 
asked another of the jurymen. 

“No, they’re not,” said the White Rabbit, 


IN WONDERLAND. 


143 


“and that’s the queerest thing about it.” 
(The jury all looked puzzled.) 

“He must have imitated somebody else’s 
hand,” said the King. (The jury all bright- 
ened up again. ) 

“Please your Majesty,” said the Knave, “I 
didn’t write it, and they can’t prove that I 
did: there’s no name signed at the end.” 

“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that 
only makes the matter worse. You must have 
meant some mischief, or else you’d have 
signed your name like an honest man.” 

There was a general clapping of hands at 
this : it was the first really clever thing the 
King had said that day. 

“That proves his guilt, of course,” said the 
Queen: “so, off with ” 

“It doesn’t prove anything of the sort!” 
said Alice. “Why, you don’t even know what 
they’re about!” 

“Read them,” said the King. 

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 
“Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” 
he asked. 

“Begin at the beginning, ” the King said, 
very gravely, “and go on till you come to the 
end: then stop.” 

There was dead silence in the court, whilst, 
the White Rabbit read out these verses : — 

“They told me you had been to her, 

And mentioned me to him : 

She gave me a good character, 

But said I could not swim. 


144 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


He sent them word I had not gone 
(We know it to be true) : 

If she should push the matter on, 

What would become of you? 

I gave her one, they gave him two, 

You gave us three or more; 

Then all returned from him to you, 

Though they were mine before. i 

If I or she should chance to be 
Involved in this affair, 

He trusts to you to set them free, 

Exactly as we were. 

My notion was that you had been 
(Before she had this fit) 

An obstacle that came between 
Him, and ourselves, and it. 

Don’t let him know she liked them best, 
For this must ever be 

A secret, kept from all the rest, 

Between yourself and me.” 

“That’s the most important piece of evi- 
dence we’ve heard yet, ” said the King, rub- 
bing his hands; “so now let the jury ” 

“If any one of them can explain it,” said 
Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few 
minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of inter- 
rupting him,) “I’ll give him sixpence. I 
don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in 
it.” 


IN WONDERLAND. 


145 


The jury all wrote down, on their slates, 
“She doesn’t believe there’s an atom of mean- 
ing in it, ’ ' but none of them attempted to ex- 
plain the paper. 

“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the 
King, “that saves a world of trouble, you 
know, as we needn’t try to find any. And 
yet I don’t know,” he went on, spreading out 
the verses on his knee, and looking at them 
with one eye; “I seem to see some meaning in 
them, after all. ‘ — said I could not swim — ’ 
you can’t swim, can you?” he added, turning 
to the Knave. 

The Knave shook his head sadly. “Do I 
look like it?” he said. (Which he certainly did 
not, being made entirely of cardboard.) 

“All right, so far,” said the King; and he 
went on muttering over the verses to himself : 
“ ‘We know it to be true’ — that’s the jury, of 
course — ‘If she should push the matter on’ — 
that must be the Queen — ‘What would become 
of you?’ — What, indeed! — ‘I gave her one, 
they gave him two’ — why, that must be what 
he did with the tarts, you know ’ ’ 

“But it goes on ‘they all returned from him 
to you,’ ” said Alice. 

“Why, there they are!” said the King 
triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the 
table. “Nothing can be clearer than that. 
Then again — ‘before she had this fit’ — you 
never had fits, my dear, I think?” he said to 
the Queen. 

“Never!” said the Queen, furiously, throw- 
ing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. 

10 Alice’s Adventure 


146 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 



(The unfortunate lit- 
tle Bill had left off 
writing on his slate 
with one finger, as he 
found it made no 
mark; but he now 
hastily began again, 
using the ink, that 
was trickling down 
his face, as long as it 
lasted.) 

“Then the words 
don’t fit you,” said 
the King, looking 
round the court with 
a smile. There was 
a dead silence. 


“It’s a pun!” the King added in an angry 
tone, and everybody laughed. “Let the jury 
consider their verdict,” the King said, for 
about the twentieth time that day. 

“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first 
— verdict afterwards. ’ ’ 


IN WONDERLAND. 


147 


“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. 
“The idea of having the sentence first!” 



“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turn- 
ing purple. 


148 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


“I won’t!” said Alice. 

“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at 
the top of her voice. Nobody moved. 

“Who cares for you?” said Alice (she had 
grown to her full size by this time). “You’re 
nothing but a pack of cards!” 

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, 
and came flying down upon her; she gave a 
little scream, half of fright and half of anger, 
and tried to beat them off, and found herself 
lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of 
her sister, who was gently brushing away some 
dead leaves that had fluttered down from the 
trees upon her face. 

“Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister. 
“Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!” 

“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said 
Alice. And she told her sister, as well as she 
could remember them, all these strange 
Adventures of hers that you have just been 
reading about; and, when she had finished, 
her sister kissed her, and said, “It was a curi- 
ous dream, dear, certainly ; but now run in to 
your tea: it’s getting late.” So Alice got up 
and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she 
might, what a wonderful dream it had been. 


IN WONDERLAND. 


149 


But her sister sat still just as she left her, 
leaning her head on her hand, watching the 
setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all 
her wonderful Adventures, till she too began 
dreaming after a fashion, and this was her 
dream : — 

First, she dreamed about little Alice herself: 
once again the tiny hands were clasped upon 
her knee, and the bright eager eyes were look- 
ing up into hers — she could hear the very tones 
of her voice, and see that queer little toss of 
her head to keep back the wandering hair that 
would always get into her eyes — and still as 
she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole 
place around her became alive with the strange 
creatures of her little sister’s dream. 

The long grass rustled at her feet as the 
White Rabbit hurried by — the frightened 
Mouse splashed his way through the neighbor- 
ing pool — she could hear the rattle of the tea- 
cups as the March Hare and his friends shared 
their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice 
of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate 
guests to execution — once more the pig-baby 
was sneezing on the Duchess’ knee, while 
plates and dishes crashed around it — once more 
the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of 
the Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of 
the suppressed guinea-pigs, filled the air, 


150 


ALICE’S ADVENTURES 


mixed up with the distant sob of the miserable 
Mock Turtle. 

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half be- 
lieved herself in Wonderland, though she 
knew she had but to open them again, and all 
would change to dull reality — the grass would 
be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rip- 
pling to the waving of the reeds — the rattling 
teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, 
and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the 
shepherd-boy — and the sneeze of the baby, 
the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other 
queer noises, would change (she knew) to the 
confused clamor of the busy farm-yard — while 
the lowing of the cattle in the distance would 
take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy 
sobs. 

Lastly, she pictured to herself, how this 
same little sister of hers would, in the after- 
time, be herself a grown woman ; and how she 
would keep, through all her riper years, the 
simple and loving heart of her childhood : and 
how she would gather about her other little 
children, and make their eyes bright and 
eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even 
with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; 
and how she would feel with all their simple 
sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple 
joys, remembering her own child-life, and the 
happy summer days. 


THE END. 


W. B. Donkey Gojopbnys Foblicbtions 

COMPLETE LIST OF THE POETIC AND PROSE 

WORKS OF 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 


POEMS OF PASSION. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 
Edition— white vellum, gold top, $1.50. Presentation 
Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 

POEMS OF PASSION. Quarto, cloth. Illustrated 
Edition, $1.50. 

POEMS OF PASSION. Pocket Edition, Illustrated— 16mo, 
cloth, 75 cents; full morocco, gold edges, $2.50. 

Human nature is less of a mystery after the reading of this book. 
“Only a woman of genius could produce such a remarkable 
work.” — Illustrated London News. 

MAURINE AND OTHER POEMS. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 
Presentation Edition— white vellum, gold top, $1.50. 
Presentation Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 
Beautiful thoughts and healthy inspiration in every line. 
“Maurine is an ideal poem about a perfect woman. "—The South. 

POEMS OF PLEASURE. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presenta- 
tion Edition — white vellum, gold top, $1.50. Presenta- 
tion Edition — half calf, gold top, $2.50. 

These poems make life doubly sweet and cheerful. 

“Mrs. Wilcox is an artist with a touch that reminds one of 
Lord Byron’s impassionate strains.”— Paris Register. 

THREE WOMEN. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Presentation 
Edition — art binding, gold top, boxed, $1.50. 

Her latest and greatest poem. This marvelous narrative of 
thrilling interest depicts the lives of three good and beautiful 
women in every phase of weakness , passion, pride, love , sympathy 
and tenderness. 

AN AMBITIOUS MAN. (Prose.) 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

“Vivid realism stands forth from every page of this fascinating 
book ."—Every Day. 


W. B. CONKEY COMPANY’S PUBLICATIONS 


1. Abb6 Constantin Hal6vy 

2. Adventures of a Brownie. ..Mulock 

3. All Aboard Optic 


4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 

Carroll 

6. An Attic Philosopher in Paris 

Souvestre 

6. Autobiography of Benjamin 

Franklin 

7. Autocrat of the Breakfast Table 

Holmes 

11. Bacon’s Essays Bacon 

12. Barrack Room Ballads. . .Kipling 

13. Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush 
Maclaren 

14. Black Beauty Sewall 

15. Blithedale Romance. .Hawthorne 

16. Boat Club Optic 

17. Bracebridge Hall Irving 

18. Brooks’ Addresses 

19. Browning’s Poems. Browning 

24. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 
Byron 

25. Child’s History of England 

Tli plr nri q 

26. Cranford. V.V.'.V.V.V.V.V.V. Gaskell 

27. Crown of Wild Olives Ruskin 

30. Daily Food for Christians 

31. Departmental Ditties. .. .Kipling 

32. Dolly Dialogues Hope 

33. Dream Life Mitchell 

34. Drummond’s Addresses 
Drummond 

87. Emerson’s Essays, Vol. 1 
Emerson 

88. Emerson’s Essays, Yol. 2 
Emerson 

39. Ethics of the Dust Ruskin 

40. Evangeline Longfellow 

43. Flower Fables Alcott 

46. Gold Dust Yonge 

49. Heroes and Hero Worship, Carlyle 

60. Hiawatha Longfellow 

61. House of Seven Gables 
Hawthorne 

62. House of the Wolf Weyman 

67. Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow 
Jerome 

68. Idylls of the King Tennyson 

69. Imitation of Christ 
Thos. a’Kempis 

60. In Memoriam Tennyson 

64. John Halifax Mulock 

67. Kept for the Master’s Use 

Havergal 

68. Kidnapped Stevenson 

69. King of the Golden River.. Ruskin 

73. Laddie 

74. Lady of the Lake Scott 

75. Lalla Rookh Moore 

76. Let Us Follow Him.. .Sienkiewicz 

77. Light of Asia Arnold 


78. Light That Failed. .. .Kipling 

79. Locksley Hall Tennyson 

80. Longfellow’s Poems 

Longfellow 

81. Lorna Doone. ...... Blackmore 

82. Lowell’s Poems Lowell 

83. Lucile Meredith 

88. Marmion Scott 

89. Mosses from an Old Manse 

Hawthorn® 

93. Natural Law in the Spiritual 

World Drummond 

94. Now or Never Optic 

97. Paradise Lost Milton 

98. Paul and Virginia 

Saint Pierre 

99. Pilgrim’s Progress. .. . Bunyan 

100. Plain Tales from the Hills 

Kipling 

101. Pleasures of Life Lubbock 

102. Prince of the House of David 

Ingraham 

103. Princess Tennyson 

104. Prue and I Curtis 

107. Queen of the Air Ruskin 

110. Rab and His Friends. . . Brown 

111. Representative Men. .Emerson 

112. Reveries of a Bachelor 


Mitchell 

113. Rollo in Geneva Abbott 

114. Rollo in Hollund Abbott 

115. Rollo in London Abbott 

118. Rollo in Naples Abbott 

117. Rollo in Paris Abbott 

118. Rollo in Rome Abbott 

119. Rollo in Scotland Abbott 

120. Rollo in Switzerland . .Abbott 

121. Rollo on the Atlantic. ..Abbott 

122. Rollo on the Rhine Abbott 

123. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 

Fitzgerald 

128. Sartor Resartus Carlyle 

129. Scarlet Letter Hawthorne 

130 Sesame and Lilies Ruskin 

131. Sign of the Four Doyle 

132. Sketch Book Irving 

133. Stickit Minister Crockett 


140. Tales from Shakespeare 

C. and Mary Lamb 

141. Tanglewood Tales. .Hawthorne 

142. True and Beautiful Ruskin 

143. Three Men in a Boat. .Jerome 

144. Through the Looking Glass 

Carroll 

145. Treasure Island Stevenson 

146. Twice Told Tales. .Hawthorne 

150. Uncle Tom’s Cabin Stowe 

154. Vicar of Wakefield. .Goldsmith 

158. Whittier’s Poems. .. .Whittier 

159. Wide, Wide World ... .Warner 

160. Window in Thrums Barrie 

161. Wonder Book Hawthorne 


AUG IS 1300 


LIBRARY OF 




0 002 571 


